The poor state of the national stadium pitch is to be addressed in time for the Co-operative Insurance Cup final and Scotland's World Cup qualifier against Iceland. Hampden Park Ltd managing director David Kells said: "We have recovered before and we want to make sure there is a good surface for both those."

Asked what had caused the problem, Kells told BBC Scotland: "Basically the bad weather and the number of games that have had to be played on it.

"The Queen's Park replay last week against Peterhead was an unscheduled game in our programme and, unfortunately, that game was played in pouring rain and the pitch cut up quite badly.

"And, with the general weather conditions, it did deteriorate more than we would have expected - although, looking back at last year, the pitch was very similar and recovered very well for the final.

"It is not as good as we would have liked, but we've got a period now when we have two more Queen's Park matches to play before the final and what we will be doing is a series of works on the pitch to make sure it recovers as it did last year."

A decision would be taken in early March about whether the surface needed to be relayed at a cost of between £100,000 and £120,000.

"The last time we replaced the pitch was in May 2004 and we know that exercise can be carried out in four days," said Kells.

"So, if need be, and we will monitor it closely, then we would replace the pitch.

"I think we should start to see improvements and it should not deteriorate any more.

"We have had four or five years when we have not had this problem and it is something we have shown in the past we can recover."