Aberdeen’s clash with Motherwell was abandoned last night after power failures left Pittodrie in the dark for the second time this month.
Players were taken off the pitch and the game was postponed just before 8pm when the lights initially shut off.
Both teams returned to the field at around 8.10pm, but just a few minutes later the ground was once again in the dark.
The decision to abandon the SPFL match was made at around 8.22pm, after only seven minutes of play, with the score still 0-0.
Earlier this month, a charity fundraiser at Pittodrie had to be relocated to Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre after a power outage at the stadium caused by a transformer failure.
The club’s chief executive Duncan Fraser said last night’s failures were related, and the floodlights had been running on generators.
The generators had successfully powered the lights at last Tuesday’s match with Kilmarnock, and the weekend’s draw with St Johnstone.
The game will be rescheduled, but given the busy December programme, it is unlikely to happen until the new year.
Mr Fraser said: “We brought in two generators and tested them – they’ve been working fine for the last week and a half, but tonight the generator tripped. We powered it up again but when it tripped again, we had no option but to call the game off.
“We can only apologise to both sets of supporters.
“We’ll make sure that everyone who had a ticket will have one for the rearranged game and Motherwell are fully compensated for their expenses.
“I’m sure between the clubs we’ll make sure they are able to come to the next game.”
Aberdeen will instal a new transformer later this week, followed by around a week of further testing.
More than 100 Motherwell supporters were left with a frustrating two and a half hour journey home after referee Alan Muir made the decision to call the match off.
Motherwell’s chief operating officer Alan Burrows said: “I feel the most for the supporters in these situations, but I think they are unavoidable.
“We are grateful to the Motherwell supporters who came up and I understand Aberdeen will allow them to keep their tickets which will allow them into the next game. Fair play to Aberdeen for that.
“We will sit down with our supporters and see if we can work out something for the game in terms of them coming back up. We will look to do something with the costs.
“We won’t necessarily compensate them for coming up but we will look to do something for the rearranged game – whenever that is.”
The sides are due to meet again on December 23 at Fir Park.
Last night a spokesman for SSE confirmed there were no other power cuts in the area during the game.
In the aftermath, a number of Aberdeen FC supporters took to social media claiming that the floodlight failures strengthened the case for the proposed new Dons stadium at Kingsford on the outskirts of the city.
Mr Fraser added: “Inevitably with an old stadium, there are issues but the transformer passed all the tests and it’s never been an issue before.
“We brought in top quality generators but when one trips there’s only so much you can do.
“We bring these generators in for European games and there’s never been any problems.”
