Scottish football fans could soon win the legal right to buy their football clubs using powers traditionally given to crofters and island communities to mount buyouts of Highland estates.

The powers would give supporters’ groups the right to become the first and preferred bidders if the owner of their club decides to sell or the club is facing closure after a financial collapse.

MSPs at Holyrood supported amendments to a new community empowerment bill after fans found themselves forced to mount last ditch rescue bids to save an increasing number of ailing Scottish clubs – including Stirling Albion, Dunfermline and Hearts of Midlothian – from closure.

Never again would fans be left watching on the touchline as their club goes bust Alison Johnstone

Alison Johnstone, the Scottish Green MSP who championed the new provisions to a bill designed to offer residents the right to buy neglected or community assets, said it was a landmark decision. The amendment will require Scottish ministers to consult on the shape of the new powers over the summer.

One possible, far-reaching option ministers could consider would be to give fans groups the legal right to put in a bid even if the club is not up for sale – a power already in force in Scotland for tenants of rural estates.

“The principle of a fans’ right to buy is overwhelmingly popular and parliament is doing the right thing by backing it,” Johnstone said.

“Many Scottish clubs are well-run, but everyone can name others which have been forced into administration, or worse. With this right, never again would fans be left watching on the touchline as their club goes bust.

“This is a system that works well elsewhere, in places like Germany, Spain and Argentina, all countries which do rather better than Scotland at both a club and national level.”

Paul Goodwin, one of the most influential figures in the fans buy-out campaign, said the new measures would make a significant difference in the Scottish game. Many clubs were now financially very vulnerable but could suddenly change hands without notice, or find themselves unable to find new owners.

Goodwin, a marketing expert helped the Nationwide Building Society run its sponsorship of England’s football leagues for ten years, said at present fans were only allowed to make offers at the last moment after conventional options to sell a club had been exhausted.

A new Scottish Football Supporters Association had recently been set up, chaired by former Labour first minister Henry McLeish, to help fans’ groups form registered and properly constituted “community interest companies” which would be able to make formal bids.

He helped fans buy Stirling Albion, one of six Scottish clubs now wholly owned by their fans or being slowly bought by fans trusts, from its 83-year-old owner, in 2011. “It was literally a day before the club was going to go under because it had no assets,” he said.

Fans at Heart of Midlothian in Edinburgh, the largest Scottish club to be saved by its supporters, are now slowly paying off a £2.5m loan from businesswoman Ann Budge, who put in her own money to save it from closure. About 8,500 supporters are contributing £15.50 a month each to pay her loan off over three years, to eventually give Foundation of Hearts sole ownership.

In the Holyrood debate, Jamie Hepburn, minister for sport, said the amendments to the bill relating to football supporters’ rights would “provide for a framework for the introduction of the full range of options that are being consulted on – namely, a right to buy, a right to bid, a right to govern or a right to be involved”.

He said the Scottish government was “committed to bringing forward legislation, using regulations, on this important issue. However, it is important that we consult fully on the issue before we do that.”

• This article was amended on 18 June 2015, to clarify that the proposed legal rights for football fans are subject to consultation, by adjusting the text and headline, and appending comments from Jamie Hepburn made during the debate. An earlier version said fans “are to be given legal rights”.