The Football Association's women's professional game director Kelly Simmons has said that tossing a coin to decide the Women's FA Cup second and third round ties "might be the only way" to complete the competition.
The Telegraph reported on Tuesday that the organisation were considering this option after the United Kingdom's government declared a national lockdown and the suspension of all "non-elite" football.
The Women's FA Cup is considered "non-elite" at this stage as the 23 clubs from the Women's Super League don't enter until the fourth round.
"It's not a great option tossing the coin and it would be the last option on the table," Simmons told ITV.
"But maybe, it might be the only way that we could move through and get the latter rounds of the FA Cup and actually complete the FA Cup. It's an option. It's one of the options."
The possibility of deciding the Cup in this way was met with anger with Wales and Reading midfielder Jess Fishlock suggesting the FA use "rock, paper, scissors" to decide rounds.
There are 158 "elite" men's teams and only 23 "elite" women's teams.
How about Rock, Paper, Scissors ? https://t.co/SPHFqXEusj
— Jessica Fishlock MBE (@JessFishlock) January 5, 2021
"There's no great or simple solution to this," Simmons added. "At the moment, these are amateur, all amateur teams, at this stage of the women's competition. Amateur sport is prohibited at the moment under the lockdown so it isn't as simple as just organising the cup competition.
"Clubs have got facilities that are closed down, they are not training, they're not playing, they're not allowed to operate currently.
"The most important consideration is all of this is player safety."
It isn't just the FA Cup that has felt the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic with the Women's Super League postponing two games as the season restarts after the Christmas break.
Manchester City WSL's match against West Ham and Arsenal's game vs. Aston Villa, which were scheduled for Saturday, have been postponed because of COVID-19 cases at City and Arsenal, the clubs said on Thursday.
City reported four positive cases on Monday but did not name the players affected by the virus and the club said a new date for the game between the women's FA Cup holders and West Ham will be announced in due course.
Meanwhile, second-placed Arsenal said all first team players initially tested negative on their return from the Christmas break but one subsequently tested positive this week.
Information from Reuters contributed to this report.