Celtic are the first victims of Neil Doncaster applying flexibility to the SPFL Premiership fixture card.
On June 20 a statement from the SPFL’s newest club announced that Ibrox wouldn’t be ready for the start of the new season with a rogue Asian supplier blamed for the failings of the club.
With a new pitch being laid at Hampden the natural alternative won’t be available during August which leaves Murrayfield as the only stadium in Scotland capable of hosting 46,000 displaced Season Ticket holders.
Edinburgh already plays host to two Premiership clubs which means that the capital is already hosting fixtures every weekend.
Nothing has yet been made public but it seems certain that the visits of Motherwell on August 10 and Ross County on August 14 will be switched to Murrayfield. So far Doncaster hasn’t set any deadline for nominating a venue for those fixtures.
Hibs start their campaign away to St Mirren on August 4, rather than play at Easter Road on August 10 they have been handed a televised match on August 11- against Celtic. Leaving Saturday August 10 clear to host a match at Murrayfield, how convenient. Celtic will be back at Easter Road on February 22.
With the SPFL corrupting the fixture card through the split Celtic visited Easter Road twice last season and only had one home match against Hibs. That should have been switched for the 24/25 season but again Celtic will visit Easter Road in the first round of fixtures.
Last season Celtic were away to Hibs, traditionally one of their toughest fixtures, on October 28 and February 7. They hosted Hibs on December 6.
While that flip is going on Hibs will visit Ibrox in the first round of fixtures, just as they did last season although they are unlikely to be setting the Sat Nav for Govan on September 28.
No timeline has come out for the re-opening of Ibrox but it is clear that the club and Doncaster are making contingency plans for a lengthy temporary home.
Speaking to BBC Scotland after the fixtures were published the SPFL CEO said:
Now that the fixtures are out, we’ll be working with Rangers and will no doubt be talking with teams they are scheduled to play at home against and let’s see what emerges. We will certainly do what we can to be as helpful as we can whilst trying to be as fair as we can to all parties.
Doncaster has history for being as helpful as he can, no punishment was ever made for refusing to participate in the Cinch sponsorship deal with the car resale firm cutting short their five year SPFL sponsorship.
William Hill are the new sponsors of the SPFL thanks to a deal negotiated by Doncaster.
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2 Comments
by Jim
Shambles!
by BriBhoy
“We will certainly do what we can to be as helpful as we can whilst trying to be as fair as we can to all parties.”
When it comes to bending over backwards to be as helpful as they possibly can to help the establishment club out of the big hole it has dug for itself (literally in this case), I have no doubt the first part of that statement is absolutely true.
I doubt I’m alone in calling bullshit on the second part though.