Celtic

Note on sourcing: celticfc.com serves its article text through JavaScript and returned only navigation chrome to automated fetches, so the club's own site could not be read directly. Everything below comes from Wikipedia, UEFA and reported coverage.

The club

Celtic were founded on 6 November 1887 in the east end of Glasgow and play at Celtic Park, also called Parkhead, which holds 60,411 and is the largest football stadium in Scotland. They are known as the Bhoys, the Celts and the Hoops, and play in green and white horizontal hoops, adopted in 1903, having originally worn a white shirt with a green collar.

Recent seasons

Celtic have won five consecutive Premiership titles. They were second in 2020/21 with 77 points, then champions in 2021/22 with 93, 2022/23 with 99, 2023/24 with 93, 2024/25 with 92 and 2025/26 with 82. The 2025/26 title was much the tightest of the run: 26 wins, four draws and eight defeats, and a two-point margin over Heart of Midlothian, who finished on 80 and were denied a first championship since 1960. It was settled on the final day, 16 May 2026, when Celtic beat Hearts 3-1 at home. Rangers were third on 72.

That season was also the most unstable in the dugout in decades. Brendan Rodgers left on 27 October 2025; Martin O'Neill took interim charge until 4 December; Wilfried Nancy was in post to 5 January 2026; O'Neill then returned to the end of the season. Celtic still finished with a double, beating Dunfermline Athletic 3-1 in the Scottish Cup final at Hampden on 23 May 2026, but lost the League Cup final 3-1 to St Mirren on 14 December 2025. Benjamin Nygren was top scorer with 16 league goals and 21 in all competitions.

In Europe in 2025/26 Celtic entered the Champions League at the play-off round and were eliminated by Kairat Almaty, 0-0 in both legs and 3-2 on penalties in Kazakhstan on 26 August 2025, Adam Idah, Luke McCowan and Daizen Maeda all saved by stand-in goalkeeper Temirlan Anarbekov. They dropped into the Europa League, took 11 points from eight league-phase matches to finish 21st, beat Utrecht 4-2 to reach the knockout play-off, and went out to Stuttgart 4-2 on aggregate, losing 4-1 at home on 19 February 2026 and winning 1-0 in Germany on 26 February.

Honours and landmarks

Celtic have won 122 major trophies: 56 Scottish league championships, 43 Scottish Cups and 22 League Cups, plus the European Cup of 1966/67, when they beat Internazionale 2-1 in Lisbon to become the first British club to win it. They remain the only Scottish club to have reached a European Cup final. They have won eight domestic trebles, a world record, four of them in succession from 2016/17 to 2019/20. The 2016/17 side went through the top-flight season unbeaten on 106 points, the first Scottish club to do so since Rangers in 1899; the unbeaten domestic run reached 69 games across 2017 and 2018.

Record attendance at Celtic Park is 83,500 for an Old Firm match on 1 January 1938. Billy McNeill made 822 appearances between 1957 and 1975. Jimmy McGrory is the record scorer with 522 goals, 62 of them in 1927/28 and eight in one league match against Dunfermline Athletic in 1928. The record fee received is £30m for Matt O'Riley to Brighton and Hove Albion in August 2024. The record fee paid is £11m for Kasper Høgh from Bodø/Glimt in July 2026.

Notable scorelines

Record win: 11-0 against Dundee in 1895. Record defeat: 8-0 at Motherwell in Division One on 30 April 1937, when Alex Stewart scored six, goalkeeper Kennaway went off at half-time and Morrison was also injured. Their highest home top-flight score of the modern era is 9-0 against Aberdeen in 2010. The defining match remains the 1967 European Cup final; the most recent match of consequence was the 3-1 win over Hearts on 16 May 2026 that decided a title on the last day.

Head-to-head notes

The only all-time record found published is against Rangers: as of 10 May 2026 the two clubs had met 452 times, 172 wins each and 108 draws, Celtic having won that day's meeting 3-1 at Celtic Park. No all-time record could be established for Aberdeen, Dundee, Dundee United, Falkirk, Hibernian, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, St Johnstone, St Mirren or Hearts. Documented recent meetings: Celtic beat Hearts 3-1 on 16 May 2026 to win the title, and lost the League Cup final 3-1 to St Mirren on 14 December 2025.

Right now (2026/27)

Martin O'Neill was confirmed as permanent manager on 11 June 2026, aged 74, on a one-year deal with an option of a further year, after the interim spell that produced the league and Scottish Cup double. Callum McGregor is captain.

Incoming: forward Camilo Durán from Qarabağ on 10 July for an undisclosed fee, and forward Kasper Høgh from Bodø/Glimt on 28 July, reported at £11m and a club record. Out: Kasper Schmeichel retired after a shoulder injury; Daizen Maeda to Ipswich Town on 25 July, undisclosed; Maik Nawrocki to RC Lens and Kelechi Iheanacho to Bursaspor, both on 17 July; Luis Palma to Lech Poznań, Hayato Inamura to FC Tokyo and Filip Skorb to Lecce, all undisclosed; Stephen Welsh to Swansea City and Ben Summers to Ayr United, free. Shin Yamada went on loan to OH Leuven.

Celtic did not play in the Premier Sports Cup group stage: as one of the five Scottish clubs in European competition they received a bye to the second round, and were drawn on 26 July against Dundee United, away at Tannadice on 15 August 2026. Pre-season brought a 1-1 draw at Shelbourne on 7 July, a 4-1 defeat to Sporting CP on 14 July, a 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough on 18 July and a 2-2 draw with AC Milan on 25 July, Durán scoring in three of the four.

They enter the Champions League at the play-off round, drawn on 3 August 2026, with legs on 18-19 and 25-26 August; the opponent is not yet known. The league campaign opens at home to Dundee on Monday 3 August 2026 at 19:30, two days after the rest of the division starts on 31 July.

Sources

Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.