Sunderland boss Phil Parkinson has admitted the Black Cats are now waiting for further information on the 2020/21 campaign after League One was ended and settled with a points per game formula.
The decision means that Sunderland have finished eighth and outside the playoff places, with Wycombe Wanderers, Oxford United, Portsmouth and Fleetwood Town due to lock horns for the third and final promotion place.
Thoughts at the Stadium of Light have quickly turned to next season and Parkinson admits that the club are waiting for details.
The Sunderland manager is keen to know when the 2020/21 season will kick off, whether games will be played behind closed doors and, if not, how many fans will be allowed in.
"The key for us now is when is next season going to start?" Parkinson said on Sunderland's official YouTube channel.
"Obviously all clubs are now waiting to know when to start; are the supporters going to be allowed back inside the stadiums? How many, what percentage of the capacity?
"So they are the key issues which we are now waiting for which will determine our planning going forward to next season."
Parkinson now has the tough task of planning his side's pre-season without a firm start date for the campaign. He said: "That’s the difficulty we face at the moment.
"We are so keen to get the decision [about] when is the season going to start because the players have had a period where they have been working at home, which they have done great, but as you can imagine they are very frustrated themselves.
"But now we have got to get a plan in place to utilise the time to the best of our ability.
"Pre-season needs six weeks normal, do we extend that, would we need to bring the players in a bit early and then give them a break after that.
"So all those decisions we have to make and we can’t make them until we get the decision about when the season is going to start."
Sunderland had gone four games without a win before the season was brought to a close, drawing home matches against Fleetwood and Gillingham, and losing at Coventry City and Bristol Rovers.
