EFL chairman Rick Parry says halting the League One and Two seasons is the last resort, despite not expecting fans to be back in stadia until March.
Last week, Government the planned October return was scrapped following the rise in Covid-19 cases and Parry now doesn’t expect crowds to be at Portman Road and other grounds for another six months.
However, he played down the suggestion that the season might be brought to an early end.
"I’m not saying that dialogue isn’t happening within clubs or amongst clubs but, from our perspective, it’s absolutely the last resort,” he told Radio Five Live.
"We need League One and League Two to remain relevant - if we go into hibernation, we might not come out of it, quite frankly.
"League One and League Two matter, they’re the heart of their communities, we need them playing football and coming out of this stronger.”
He admitted the decision to pause the return of supporters was a big blow with a number of pilot events with 1,000 fans present having taken place prior to last week's developments. Town had been given the go-ahead for 1,000 supporters to attend Saturday's game against Rochdale.
"Clearly we’re incredibly disappointed,” he said. "We’ve been carrying out pilots, which were immensely successful last weekend, so in a sense the only evidence the government had to consider were the pilot projects and they appear to have ignored that evidence.
"Clearly we recognise that infection rates are rising, the virus is a huge challenge for everybody.
"We get that health and safety must come first but everybody was gearing up for a gradual return in October.
"We really thought we could be an example to the country and show how to bring people into top-class entertainment safely, sensibly and securely.
"It’s not happening, it’s probably now going to be March, so we’ll have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and find some money.”
Regarding the financial impact, Parry continued: "The challenge for us is that, certainly at League One and League Two level, more than 30 per cent of the revenues come from gate receipts.
"We’re much less dependent on TV revenues than the Premier League or even the Championship.
"So it’s going to be really tough. Clubs have been really responsible, they’ve introduced salary caps at that level and are trying to control the costs.
"They’re doing their bit but, without an input, injection or rescue package then it’s going to be really tough to get through this season and, frankly, getting through this season, keeping clubs alive and the competition alive is a huge priority for us.”
He added: "We’ve consistently said that we need up to £250 million - that figure hasn’t changed, we’ve been saying it since May.
"To be honest, that was based on the losses from last season and the assumption we’d play the whole of this season without crowds, which we thought was pessimistic at the time.
"So we’re not saying we now have to recalculate and come up with a completely different figure, it just means we’ll be getting onto the upper end of that figure.
"It’s something we’ve been working night and day on, we’re in dialogue with the Premier League, which is constructive, but we’re exploring other sources as well.
"It might take a package of different measures, we’re still hopeful we can get some support from the government.
"The Department of Culture, Media and Sport have been incredibly helpful to us throughout the end of last season and this season.
"So we remain confident that we will have a package but we do need specifics. Clubs need answers and reassurance very, very soon. We’re talking not very many weeks before we know where we’re heading.
"Some will run into difficulty sooner than others, they’re all different with different resources.
"Some will run into problems in October, some in November, some will be okay until March, but many of them would absolutely have difficulty in finishing the season.
"I don’t want to overplay it or be too sensationalist about it as we’re doing our utmost to make sure everybody comes through it if we can.
"But some are on the brink, some would have been on the brink without Covid. We’ve kept all of them intact so far but, yes, absolutely, some will be very worried.
"Of course there’s a prospect that, if we can’t put a package in place, some will go to the wall.”
Over the weekend, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said he hoped the Premier League, whose clubs are set to meet on Tuesday, would agree a deal which would help out League One and Two clubs this week, however that timescale is now thought to be ambitious.