The Scottish Premier League have would consider the return of artificial pitches to the Clydesdale Bank Premier League. As well as causing a record number of postponements, one of the harshest winters in living memory has left many SPL pitches in a poor state, forcing clubs to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on remedial work this summer.

Tuesday night's Champions League quarter-final second leg between CSKA Moscow and Inter Milan was played on the latest 'fourth generation' pitch, and it is this the SPL may consider should it find favour with their member clubs.

SPL secretary Ian Blair told BBC Scotland: "We are open to it as a possibility, but we would require a demonstration that it was going to be effective.

"We as a league are not promoting artificial surfaces, but there is a facility within our rules for a club to come forward and - subject to various criteria being met - it's certainly possible that it would be approved."

Blair admits the Dunfermline experiment meant many in Scotland are against artificial surfaces on principle.

"I think we are still chastened of the experience of the Premier League with an artificial pitch," he said.

"However, if it can be proven that the new surfaces are much better than that would help with the consideration."