The Area Around Celtic Park Is Being Transformed. We Have Opportunities Here.

The announcement that a brand new entertainment venue is about to be built in the environs of Celtic Park is good news for the club.

If the area around our ground is turning into a major hub then that can only be a positive. It will let us explore some ideas and projects which have long been on the backburner. It will give us a chance to grow and earn.

The news of this has caused some consternation across the city, where they view everything positive that happens to us, or around us, as proof that The Great Conspiracy Of The Unseen Hand is well at work and moving to assure our continued dominance.

Nothing even remotely like that has happened here, or is happening.

The East End of Glasgow was neglected, horribly, for decades. Ironically, it took the Jubilee to push forward with it revitalisation and the big changes that we’ve seen since.

But it was overdue. Central government hadn’t put a penny into our wee corner of the world. We didn’t even have – as was often discussed – an underground station and we still don’t.

Transport links still aren’t great, as anyone who has to use public transport to get to the games can attest, but the area itself looks and feels different, and it’s not before time.

The new venue, which it’s proposed would be able to host 900 people, will not make Celtic money directly, but it will enhance the fan experience and it opens the doors to the hotel and museum projects we’ve long harboured an intention to build.

The problem with these projects is that there had to be a commercial justification for them. The outlay will be huge, and there has to be some kind of cost-benefit advantage to going ahead with them.

The more there is to do in the local area the more these ideas come into focus.

The more the East End becomes and entertainment and events hub the more commercial upside there is in Celtic invested in its own stadium footprint infrastructure, and so this is worth keeping an eye on.

This could be the catalyst for expansion that we’ve been waiting for.