Chris Sutton: Ex-Celtic striker faces second BT Sports broadcast move over Rangers row

BT Sport pundit Chris Sutton will broadcast from an empty Celtic Park on Thursday with his former side in Germany, and Rangers hosting Sparta Prague.

The outspoken former player has again been denied access to Rangers’ Ibrox Stadium, according to reports, with the Scottish champions hosting Sparta Prague in the Europa League in Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s first match as manager.

With two games kicking off consecutively the broadcaster’s usual set-up involves covering the early kick-off from the venue of the later game – but they were forced to change plans when Celtic were in Spain to face Real Betis and Rangers at home to Olympique Lyonnais.

Press accreditation requests for Sutton, and his former Celtic team-mate Neil Lennon, were not approved at Ibrox in September and BT were forced into a late change of plans and switched broadcast to their London studio.

They face a repeat according to the Scottish Sun who say Sutton will provide his opinion on the continental competition from the empty ground in the east end of Glasgow with a spokeswoman saying: “We would have preferred to have kept our presentation team together at Ibrox but unfortunately this has not been made possible.”

The games will be shown back to back on BT Sports 3.

Sutton has already made headlines this week after League Two Stenhousemuir hit back at the pundit dragging them into a row over Old Gunnar Solksjaer’s Manchester United sacking. The Ochilview club asked the 48-year-old to highlight their community work rather than his disparaging comments around recruitment.

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