Events

Rangers confirm Hampden Park switch for start of season

Featured image credit: Cal Umbra/CC BY-SA 4.0/Edited for size

Featured image credit: Cal Umbra/CC BY-SA 4.0/Edited for size

Scottish Premiership club Rangers has reached an agreement to play home matches at Hampden Park during the early part of the 2024-25 season as work continues on the redevelopment of the Copland Stand at Ibrox.

Rangers’ Premiership matches against Motherwell on August 10 and Ross County on August 24 will both take place at Hampden Park, home of the Scottish national team.

With draws still to be made for the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round and potential play-off round, plus a possible home tie in the Premier Sports Cup, the club said it would communicate news on dates and kick-off times for these fixtures once the information is confirmed.

Rangers announced last week that it was close to finalising a deal to begin the season at Hampden Park and an agreement with the Scottish FA and the Scottish Professional Football League has now been struck. The SPFL has confirmed the deal will run up to Scotland’s UEFA Nations League fixture against Poland on September 5.

No date has been given for when the Ibrox work will be completed, but the club said it is working “tirelessly” to finish the project as soon as possible. All season ticket holders will be allocated a ticket for home league matches at Hampden Park.

Rangers revealed last month that work at Ibrox had suffered a significant setback after a delay in a materials shipment from Asia. A multi-million-pound renovation project to overhaul the disabled facilities at the stadium commenced at the end of last season, and the club had initially hoped the work would be completed in time for the new campaign.

The Copland Stand project includes the erection of a new cantilever with 1,000 extra seats. A number of new accessible viewing positions will be added to the rear of the Copland Front, increasing overall wheelchair-accessible spaces to more than 150.

Hampden Park is also home to Queen’s Park, and Rangers’ temporary switch to the stadium has led to a schedule change for the second-tier Championship club. Queen’s Park’s home match against Livingston, which had been scheduled for the nearby Lesser Hampden on August 10, will now take place on August 9 and kick off at 7:45pm.

In a statement, Livingston said it was “disappointed” that its schedule has been impacted by matters “entirely unrelated” to the club.

“We didn’t have any input into the discussions regarding this, we were only informed of the change when the final decision had already been made,” Livingston said. “Again, whilst understanding the difficulty in rescheduling due to a busier than ever fixture card this season, it’s neither the fault of ourselves nor Queen’s Park which has led to the requirement for change, so we don’t believe, as a club, that it should have had an impact on our fixture list.”