Today the news that Hampden and Murrayfield look like being the only grounds in Scotland selected to host matches in the 2028 Euros comes as no surprise whatsoever.
It seems to be part of a long-standing and petty policy by the governing body.
However the decision was arrived at, it’s one on a continuum that goes back a long, long time, to the SFA’s decision to spend a fortune – including a lot of public money – on Hampden.
The SFA holds the strings when it comes to this stuff.
The decision to snub Parkhead is very deliberate. They have no problem with Murrayfield because Murrayfield doesn’t really pose a threat to the sanctity of Hampden … but Celtic Park does.
For decades some have wondered why the biggest and best stadium in the country, never got near hosting a European final.
There are one or two minor criteria we don’t meet – related to press facilities I believe – but we could comfortably accommodate the necessary changes if we wanted to.
We don’t because there is no point.
Because the SFA will only allow the use of the national stadium for a purpose such as that. So any changes to get us up to the necessary standard would be a waste of our time and money.
The governing body has a Hampden Only policy, a throwback to when they had to find a way of paying for that white elephant.
They couldn’t have it said that a mere club stadium overshadowed it, which is probably one of the reasons why Celtic Park is not on the Euros list. Nobody who visited Parkhead for a game could possibly think Hampden offered more.
It is high time this idiotic policy was ditched and more respect given to the two other Glasgow stadiums which leave Hampden in the dust. And I write that as one of the few people, it seems to me, who actually enjoys the national stadium when I’m there. As a neutral venue it’s great. For one off games it’s one of my favourite places.
But Celtic Park is, of course, a vastly superior football arena, and is well capable of hosting a European final and the atmosphere would be light years from anything Hampden could generate with that ridiculous running track around it.
The SFA maintains a parochial, small minded view of this which frankly can’t be defended any longer and, to be honest, never really could. Who doubts that we could host one of those showpiece games if the opportunity was presented to us?
The problem is that under the SFA it never will be.
If we ever want to be considered, then this is one of the areas where we have to lobby the governing body. The difficulty is in that we’d likely have minimal support. The other clubs don’t care enough about this issue to make a song and dance about it.
Their rationale is that they don’t benefit either way, so why should they care?
But of course, they should care.
Because this is an example of how the SFA’s clubhouse attitudes and lack of modern thinking holds the whole game here back. That will not change until the fundamental self-serving nature of that organisation does.
And that’s in the club’s own hands … if they ever wake up and realise that.
It seems quite apt that the home of the SFA is not a football stadium,
but an athletics stadium.
… and neither is fit for purpose!
They probably can’t pick 2 in the sane city and are never not going to use hampden
Personally, I never go to semi-finals or finals, because I absolutely hate Hampden and I am not prepared to give the SFA any of my money. It lacks atmosphere and should never have been built. There was no need for it and was a complete waste of taxpayers money, for it was public money that funded it. Fergus opined that it was not needed and he was quite correct. Both Celtic park and Ibrox are superior stadia to Hampden and Hampden is hardly ever used.
In my opinion, the SFA hold Scottish football back as it is full of decrepit elderly has-beens that are utterly selfish and totally lack vision. Our structure is dire and it is completely due to the incompetence and lack of vision of the SFA.
Between the SFA choosing Hampden and ignoring 2 excellent football stadiums in Celtic Park and Ibrox, and the certainty that every stadium except Wembley will be a bit part player (especially the ones in Celtic nations) dumped as early in the competition as possible… I’d almost rather Euro 2028 was elsewhere.
Time and again the fans are shat upon from a great height.
Hampden is a soulless dump. The atmos is atrocious. It should be done away with along with the troglodytes to who the SFA.
There was a memorable ‘conversation’ on Clyde Super Scoreboard (possibly still available on Youtube) where one of the panel was trying in vain to get a caller to understand that, no matter how good he personally felt it to be, Ibrox didn’t meet the UEFA criteria for a 5 star stadium eligible to host finals. I think the main sticking point which also applies to Celtic Park was that there is no physically separate access area for team coaches.
I done te Celtic stadium tour a couple of years ago and the tour guide said that Celtic could not host any European finals because the home changing room was different to the away team changing rooms and that everything has to be a mirror image so that no team is seen to be getting an advantage
I think that Celtic Park fails on two criteria .. One is something to do with the number of press seats and facilities. The other is that the team bus has to arrive to an underground park, to offer maximum security. I know that at Celtic Park the bus stops outside and the players enter that way. I know that the Dragão here in Porto was designed with Euro 2004 in mind so that all stadiums that were built here in Portugal (They built 10 in total, most are lying unused or very rarely used) and all have these criteria. I read something online that Old Trafford also doesnt offer this therefore it is not able to hold finals