{"id":745136,"date":"2026-06-18T14:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T14:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/745136\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T14:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T14:32:09","slug":"scottish-premiership-calvin-harris-commonwealth-games-force-monday-start-for-celtic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/745136\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Premiership: Calvin Harris &#038; Commonwealth Games force Monday start for Celtic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">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.<\/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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Celtic have voiced their disappointment after it was announced they will start their Scottish Premiership title defence on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-745136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}