How much Dundee could be fined for Rangers pitch fiasco as 5 figure Motherwell blueprint comes with 2 caveats

Dundee are likely to be fined more than £50,000 if found guilty of breaching SPFL rules over their unplayable pitch.

The Dens Park side postponed their fixture with Rangers for a second time last night leading to a furious Ibrox statement slamming them for 'negligence and unprofessionalism' in failing to get the game played again after it was initially rained off on March 21. It will now be played on Wednesday April 17 but that throws up issues in itself - namely that it is played AFTER the rest of the final round of post-split fixtures, and means Rangers will play just four days before their Scottish Cup semi-final with Hearts.

It's the fourth home game this season Dundee have had to call off due to the sorry state of their surface and after the league revealed disciplinary proceedings are being investigated, Rangers called for firm action after their manager Philippe Clement initially demanded a decision on Tuesday over whether the game could be played. That fell on deaf ears and it wasn't postponed until 3.30pm on Wednesday - at which point he and his players had been in Tayside for almost 24 hours.

There is precedent for top flight teams being fined over the state of their surfaces. Back in 2010, Motherwell were hit with a fine of £50,000 for the infamous Fir Park pitch, though it should be noted that was a largely sympathetic verdict from the SFA at the time who acknowledged they had recently invested heavily on undersoil heating and a new surface in a bid to improve it. £45,000 of that penalty was suspended and Leanne Dempster, Motherwell CEO at the time, praised it as a 'balanced and sensible approach.'

Dundee don't have the same obvious defence case to make and, accounting for inflation in the 14 years since, it seems likely the Dens Park club will face a harsher punishment if they are found in breach of league regulations. The comparisons with Motherwell's situation certainly weren't lost on Stuart Kettlewell who was left fuming at the state of the pitch after his side clinched a late winner there at the weekend.

He said: "What sticks in my throat and this is where I really start to get on my high horse - and no doubt the guys on the program start to debate it once I've said it - we are here in 2024. We are trying to make this game better and sell the best product we possibly can do.

"Motherwell realised a few years ago they had a problem such as this at Dens Park and spent £1.25million on their pitch and surroundings to make it a better environment. We could have played our game at any point on our pitch. That is maybe a silly argument but the pitch has been playable all week at Fir Park. We do that for the greater good of the football club and Scottish football.

"We played here on August 2 in the first game of the season and I came away and said to everybody wait and see the problems you are going to have here at Dens Park over the course of a season because the game was almost called off on the first day. What that is in essence, and I feel so strongly on this, when you invest that money it comes out my player budget.

"What then starts to happen is clubs can start to pay more, they offer more for specific players and that can come about because you don't invest in your infrastructure or pitch. I do feel strongly about it. A lot of people will disagree and come up with excuses otherwise but lets be honest we are all pretty well educated people and we can see that is the case here.

"If you want to pay players more and jump in and say you will give X amount of money more on the same player I am fighting for you can understand where my argument comes from. Alan Burrows was the pioneer in making sure there was a proper playing surface at Fir Park. The money that was invested in that goes a hell of a long way in this game.

"What do we do? Do we just say we are going to leave our pitch to be in a state or do we say we are going to try and put a proper surface out there" We've had the likes of Rangers and Celtic and the big clubs coming to our ground and commenting on how good the surface is. I am a huge believer in trying to develop football players and in order to do that you need to put a proper playing surface down."