Three former high-ranking Penn State officials, including the university’s former president, Graham B. Spanier, were ordered Tuesday to stand trial on charges that they were part of a cover-up related to the child sexual abuse scandal involving the former football coach Jerry Sandusky.

After a two-day preliminary hearing this week, Harrisburg District Judge William Werner decided there was enough evidence against Spanier, the retired university vice president Gary Schultz and the former athletic director Tim Curley to proceed with a trial, which could start later this year. That would be the next public chapter of the scandal, which threw the university and its most prominent athletic program into turmoil.

The news came on the eve of another football season, the second under Coach Bill O’Brien and the second without Joe Paterno. Paterno, Penn State’s famed former coach, died in January 2012 after he was fired in the wake of the public disclosure of the allegations against Sandusky, a longtime top assistant for the team. Nine months later, Sandusky was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse and sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison.

Two weeks ago, Penn State’s board of trustees authorized the payment of about $60 million to settle claims made by dozens of Sandusky’s victims.