Edinburgh Trams Murrayfield

Celtic will play at Murrayfield Stadium should they reach the Champions League qualifier next season, due to Celtic Park and Hampden being used for the Commonwealth Games.

Celtic Chief Executive Peter Lawwell made the announcement yesterday saying: “Clearly we very much hope to be involved in the Champions League qualifying matches in July and early August and if this is the case then we felt it important that our fans know our proposed arrangements as early as possible,” added Lawwell.

“We are fortunate that we have such a fantastic and sizeable support and clearly it is important that we allow as many fans as possible to attend our matches.

“Murrayfield is a magnificent stadium and we are sure it will be a venue which will provide a great footballing occasion.”

The stadium, which has a capacity of 67,000, will also have a new hybrid grass pitch by July when the second qualifying round gets under way.

Murrayfield, which hosts Edinburgh’s home games in the Pro12 and Heineken Cup as well as internationals hosted Hearts European home ties between 2004 and 2006 when their Tynecastle pitch was deemed too small for Uefa club competition.

Scottish Rugby’s director of commercial communications Dominic McKay, said: “We’re delighted to welcome Celtic to Murrayfield for their Uefa Champions League qualifying matches this summer, one of the biggest annual sport competitions.

“Scottish Rugby is proud of the facilities we have on offer in Edinburgh. This is a fantastic opportunity for Celtic to work with us to promote Murrayfield as a venue not just for rugby, in 2014.”

Any request by Celtic to play outside Scotland would have been denied by European governing body Uefa.

In principle, a club must play all its matches in the competition at one and the same ground.

Matches may be played either at the ground of the home club or at another ground in the same or another city within the territory of its association, or, if so decided by the Uefa administration and/or the Uefa disciplinary bodies, in the territory of another Uefa member association for reasons of safety or as a result of a disciplinary measure.

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John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.