How will COP26 impact Celtic and Rangers fixtures?

For an event of the scale of COP26, the knock-on effects are being felt in various areas across the city.

All eyes are on Glasgow as COP26 draws closer.

The climate conference is expected to attract 20,000 delegates from all over the world.

While it’s an exciting milestone for the city, it’s also causing a far amount of disruption due to the sheer size of the event.

The climate conference is expected to attract over 100 world leaders and 20,000 attendees to Glasgow. Photo: JPI Media.

Each day, 10,000 police officers will be deployed across the city, with people being drafted in from across the country.

There will also be various road closures in place across Glasgow.

For football fans, there are some changes to Celtics and Rangers fixtures due to COP26 that you might want to be aware of in advance.

Here’s all you need to know about the effects of COP26 on the football schedule in Glasgow.

When is COP26?

COP26 will take place from Sunday October 31st to Friday November 12th.

The climate conference will be held at Glasgow’s Scottish Events Campus – home of the Hydro, SECC and Armadillo buildings.

With the Europa League matches starting in mid-September and continuing on into 2022, some changes to the original football schedule are expected as a result.

What does COP26 mean? Meaning of the name of Glasgow climate change conference, what will happen - and what the letters stand for.

How will COP26 impact Celtic and Rangers fixtures?

Due to the scale of COP26, Police Scotland have warned that they will be unable to facilitate two major at-home fixtures on the same day during COP26.

As a result, Celtic’s Europa League match against Ferencvaros has been given a new kick-off time.

It will now take place at 3.30pm on October 19th, before the climate conference kicks off in earnest on October 31st.

The game was originally due to take place on matchday four of the Europa League calendar.

However, UEFA must schedule two home matches on matchday three, due to stewarding and police officers not being able to accommodate two fixtures on matchday four.

The Rangers were also scheduled to play Danish team Brondby on Thursday October 21st.

The afternoon kick-off time for the Celtic-Ferencvaros match is due to UEFA regulations stating that kick-off cannot clash with current TV rights.

"In an attempt to avoid this change we have been in extensive discussions with all relevant authorities, exhausting all avenues to try and establish a better solution for the club and our supporters, however none of these other options have been successful, due to either UEFA considerations, policing requirements or domestic fixture scheduling,” explained Celtic in a statement.

"Clearly this is an unfortunate and unique set of circumstances driven by COP26.

"We fully understand the frustrations of our supporters. We can assure our fans that we have made significant representation at the highest levels to try and avoid this eventuality."

The club is also offering flexible reticketing options so that fans are not left with tickets that they can no longer use.

Home Cup Ticket Scheme supporters will also be reached out to directly with more information on how the changes may affect their tickets.

Season ticket holders will have the option to secure either three match packages or priority access to single match tickets.

On top of that, season ticket holder three match packages have been frozen at 2018/19 prices this year.