Celtic’s Pre-Season Plans include glamorous fixtures in Ireland, Italy and at Paradise | OneFootball

Celtic won the 2024/25 Scottish Premiership title, making it 13 titles in 14 seasons for the Parkhead side who have now enjoyed a quarter of a century dominating domestic football in Scotland...

The players of Celtic pose with the Scottish Premiership Trophy on May 17, 2025. (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

All the success is great for the Celtic support who are now eagerly looking ahead to next season. With that in mind, here is everything that we know so far about Celtic’s pre-season plans.

How will Celtic prepare pre-season for the 2025/26 Scottish Premiership campaign?

Celtic fans are already discussing their pre-season plans with so many exciting games in Ireland, Scotland, Italy and probably Portugal to be played all while Manager Brendan Rodgers and the Celtic CEO Michael Nicholson work away in the background trying to bring in top quality additions to strengthen their squad in time for the new season kicking off in the first weekend in August.

Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers presents a special award to Celtic’s most decorated player James Forrest. Celtic v St Mirren, Scottish Premiership, 17 May 2025 Photo Robert Perry/Shutterstock

Here’s everything we know so far about some of Celtic’s pre-season plans as they prepare for the 2025/26 Scottish Premiership.

Celtic will return to the club’s training base at Lennoxtown on the outskirts of Glasgow to begin pre-season training at the end of the month before travelling to Ireland to play the opening pre-season match of the 2025/26 campaign.

Celtic will play Cork City in the Cork Super Cup event on Tuesday, 8 July, at the SuperValu Pairc Ui Chaoimh stadium (aka The Park, which is the home of Cork City’s GAA side). With a crowd of around 40,000 expected this will be a money spinning opener for the Irish sides and Celtic too will receive a handsome share of the takings.

Cork Super Cup

The match is the brainchild of Cork GAA and a sports marketing agency, and it will be Celtic’s first chance to get their hands on some pre-season silverware. 40,000 fans are expected to show up, and the £5,000,000 that the event hopes to generate will be a huge boost for both ‘soccer’ clubs plus their GAA hosts.

It’s also likely that today’s most trusted online sports betting sites, such as the official Qbet sportsbook, will have a range of markets for this event with highly competitive odds.

Launch of the Inaugural Cork Super Cup, SuperValu Pairc Ui Chaoimh, Cork 3 3 2025 Celtic FC player Adam Idah, Cork hurler Rob Downey and Cork City™s Cathal O™Sullivan. Photo INPHO Morgan Treacy

Celtic Boss Brendan Rodgers has already said that they are looking forward to the match and that it will be an important part of their pre-season schedule.

It was also recently announced that Celtic will be hosting a pre-season friendly match against English Premier League side Newcastle United on 19 July. There will be a huge travelling Newcastle United support coming up from England’s North East as they look to get the better of Celtic in a ‘Battle of Britain’ match that can’t really be termed as a friendly due to the cross border rivalries between the two nations.

Celtic v Newcastle Utd. Image Celtic FC

Newcastle United of course are managed by Eddie Howe who came very close to being appointed Celtic manager in May 2021, only to change his mind at the last minute, opening the door for Ange Postecoglou to begin his European adventure at Celtic. The rest as they say is history.

How else is Celtic preparing for next season?

After the game against Cork City Celtic will fly to the club’s training camp in Portugal and are expected to play a match against Sporting Club of Lisbon. Then Celtic will head to the north of Italy to play in a new prestigious tournament.

Tourists and A-listers heading for the shores of Lake Como this summer will have the opportunity to enjoy some top-class pre-season football after the teams for the Como Cup were announced.

Scottish champions Celtic, Dutch giants Ajax and Al-Ahli from the Saudi Pro League will take part in the tournament at the Stadio Sinigaglia from 23-27 July. Como will use the matches as part of their preparation for their second season in Serie A since winning promotion back to the top flight last year.

Alex Valle signs on for Como after his €6m transfer from Barcelona. Photo Como FC

Celtic are preparing for next season in several other ways, too. For example, according to Brendan Rodgers, some of the key areas they will be focusing on to ensure they get the squad ready for domestic and European football next season are the following:

• Paying more attention to player development • Leveraging various modern and sophisticated sports science tools • Trying out innovative new strategies and tactics

Final thoughts

Celtic have won the Scottish Premiership four seasons in a row and will be looking to win their fifth consecutive title next season, which starts by focusing on pre-season preparations.

Despite Celtic’s domination of the Scottish game, set-backs can still happen. You just have to look back to the Scottish Cup Final on 24 May when Aberdeen shocked Celtic to deny them another Treble. Th Pittodrie side defended throughout out and took the game to a penalty shoot out which they won comfortably with Celtic missing through Callum McGregor and Alistair Johnston and Aberdeen scoring all their own efforts from the spot.

Photo: Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

On many of today’s most trusted online sports betting sites, Celtic were priced at around 1/4 in the fractional odds format to win the match outright, which means they had an 80.00% chance (implied probability rate) of winning.

In comparison, the underdogs/outsiders, Aberdeen, were priced, on average, at around 12/1 to win the Scottish Cup Final, meaning they only had a 7.70% implied probability rate of winning. Some people still felt that Aberdeen could upset the odds and beat Celtic, which was why a handful of sports bettors viewed Aberdeen as a worthwhile value bet and those who took the chance were well rewarded.

Photo: Vagelis Georgariou (The Celtic Star)

The more realistic scoreline for the 2025 Scottish Cup Final was for Celtic to beat Aberdeen 4-0, 4-1, 5-0 or 5-1 but the reality was much different and it just proves that there are no guarantees in football and shock can happen. Even to a top team that is used to winning like Celtic.

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