{"id":3920,"date":"2026-06-18T11:47:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T11:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=3920"},"modified":"2026-06-18T11:47:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T11:47:06","slug":"scottish-premiership-calvin-harris-commonwealth-games-force-monday-start-for-celtic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=3920","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Premiership: Calvin Harris &#038; Commonwealth Games force Monday start for Celtic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Celtic have voiced their disappointment after it was announced they will start their Scottish Premiership title defence on a Monday evening, because of a combination of the Commonwealth Games and two Calvin Harris concerts.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Scottish champions say they made &#8220;repeated representations&#8221; to the SPFL and Police Scotland to ensure a weekend fixture but were told there was &#8220;no choice&#8221; but to have their opener against Dundee on 3 August (19:30 BST).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There will be Glasgow 2026 cycling events at the Sir Chris Hoy Arena &#8211; next to Celtic Park &#8211; over the weekend of 1 and 2 August, while Harris will stage two large concerts at Hampden on the same days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We feel strongly a weekend timing should have been facilitated in the interests of both teams, both sets of supporters and the status of the fixture,&#8221; added Celtic, who said they had negotiated an earlier kick-off time to help fans travelling from Ireland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">All six opening-weekend fixtures will be shown live on television, with the 2026-27 term starting on Friday, 31 July as Dundee United host Rangers (20:00). <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Hearts &#8211; last season&#8217;s runners-up &#8211; visit Aberdeen on the Saturday (17:30), after Falkirk and St Mirren meet earlier in the day (15:00).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Celtic have voiced their disappointment after it was announced they will start their Scottish Premiership title defence on a Monday&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}