Flag day may be put on hold as Games commitment forces Celtic into a rethink
CELTIC chief executive Peter Lawwell admits the Commonwealth Games may yet force the Premiership champions to abandon the tradition of raising the flag on the opening day of next season.
Work is already well under way to transform Celtic Park into the shape required to host the opening ceremony for the Glasgow Games, which will commence on July 23, while the new domestic football season starts on August 9.
Celtic are already committed to hosting Champions League qualifying ties at Murrayfield, the home of Scottish rugby, and Lawwell admits discussions have been initiated with the SPFL over potentially using the free ‘joker’ weekend to postpone the first fixture for a week, thus freeing up space in the diary for another overseas glamour friendly along the lines of those undertaken against Liverpool and Real Madrid over the past couple of years.
‘It’s going to be tight to have the stadium ready but there is a joker weekend there for everybody,’ said Lawwell. ‘The question is whether we take the ninth or the 16th. If we can’t get the pitch right, we’d take the ninth, play at home on the 16th and that would be the flag day.
‘We don’t have anything lined up for the dates at the moment but, if the pitch isn’t ready, I think we’d try to go and play somewhere else on the ninth.’
Lawwell also confirmed that the club are looking at the option of staging at least one fixture at Murrayfield in order to familiarise the players with the surroundings of the rugby venue and it’s new hybrid pitch — a mixture of grass and plastic.
Given the importance home advantage has been to Celtic’s European successes in recent seasons, the change in venue could theoretically throw the side off-balance as they attempt to find their feet under new manager Ronny Deila.
Equally, the introduction of UEFA’S champions path through the qualifiers has allowed the club to make it to the Champions League group stages in each of the past two seasons.
‘We’ve got to the group stages in seven of the 11 years I’ve been here and to the last 16 three times,’ continued Lawwell. ‘My view would be that we, or the champions of Scotland, should do three years out of five.
‘You are always going to have a poor referee or a plastic pitch or a Karagandy. It’s early, you don’t have your squad together, other teams are fitter because they are halfway through their season. You can lose.
‘But because of that champions route and looking at our budget against an Elfsborg or a Helsinki, we should be looking at three times out of five.’
Deila has a little over five weeks until Celtic enter the qualifying fray and, even though he hasn’t yet met most of his players, he openly concedes that he must make an immediate impression.
‘It takes time but I also think it is very wrong to say I need two years to do something. You have to do it now. I have to come in and do everything I can to take my team in the right direction,’ said the Norwegian.
‘Neil has done a fantastic job before me, so I won’t change everything — I need to do it piece by piece. And we’ll see. I know we have the quality, so we can do everything.’
There is also the possibility that Deila could be plunged into an assignment in which he knows far more about the opposition than his own team. The irony of potentially drawing Norwegian champions Stromsgodset, the club he has just left, is not lost on him.
‘Before I came here, I saw that we could draw Celtic and I thought about that,’ added Deila. ‘You always have a chance to win. Always. If you are going to go on the pitch and not think that, then why are you there?
‘We were in the UEFA Cup and played Atletico Madrid three years ago. We played away and lost only 2-1 in the Calderon Stadium, which was a fantastic experience.
‘Everything is possible but, if you are a good team like we are going to be, you should win games like that.’