There was an interesting report on 67 Hail Hail today about the Wi-Fi and mobile signal situation at Celtic Park. This is a subject that has probably driven more supporters half mad than any other minor irritation in Scottish football.
Every matchday, you’ll see fans waving their phones about, walking the concourse, or leaning over railings trying to catch a bar of signal like it’s the 1990s again.
For years we’ve moaned about it, and most of us have blamed the club for not doing more. “Sort the Wi-Fi, Celtic!” has been a familiar refrain. But it turns out, for once, that this one isn’t actually the club’s fault.
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As 67 Hail Hail reports, “Glasgow City Region has been working with mobile network operators to improve coverage around the city’s four major sports venues — Celtic Park, Hampden, Ibrox, and the Emirates Arena — after identifying significant dead zones in the east end.” That’s right: of the four big venues in the Glasgow area, Celtic Park currently has the lowest telecom coverage of the lot.
This isn’t about bias or the board. It’s not about Celtic being asleep at the wheel. It’s a structural issue — the east end of Glasgow is sitting in a telecom blackspot. That’s not something the club can fix by itself, no matter how many routers it installs.
The good news is that this is finally being tackled.
“A new tranche of work is planned to enhance the signal around Celtic Park,” the report explains. Discussions are ongoing between operators, Glasgow City Region, and local authorities. It’s about time too, because anyone who’s ever tried to blog, post, or podcast live from a match knows how impossible it is right now.
Trying to upload a photo or send an update during the game is an exercise in pure frustration.
Even just checking the halftime scores elsewhere can take several minutes. The club’s own Wi-Fi system helps a little but with sixty thousand people in one place, the available bandwidth is virtually zero. Once you’re off the internal network, you might as well be trying to get a signal from the Moon.
I can tell you personally, as someone who covers Celtic games for the blog and podcast, it’s brutal.
There have been afternoons where I couldn’t get a single post up until I’d left the ground. Everything just jammed. The signal collapse inside and around the stadium has been a running joke for years. Except it isn’t funny when you’re trying to do your job or even just message someone who isn’t there.
Now, to some people, this might not sound like a big deal. But if you’ve ever tried to keep a conversation going during a match, or share updates with friends and family who couldn’t get tickets, you know how frustrating it is. Even something as simple as placing a quick bet or checking a VAR decision replay can turn into an impossible task.
Yes, there are bigger issues facing Celtic than Wi-Fi. Nobody’s pretending otherwise.
But this is part of the wider matchday experience, and that does matter. Because right now, Celtic Park on a Saturday can feel oddly flat. As I wrote in a previous piece, it’s become little more than a case of showing up, sitting down, and watching the game.
There’s no atmosphere around the edges, no real sense of engagement or entertainment before or after.
If you want people to feel connected — literally and figuratively — then you’ve got to fix these basics. Better signal might seem like a small thing, but it’s these incremental improvements that make the matchday experience better.
So, if this partnership between Glasgow City Region, the mobile operators, and the club can finally deliver proper coverage around Celtic Park, then I can only applaud everyone involved. If Celtic has been quietly pushing for this behind the scenes, they deserve credit for that too.
We are a global club in a digital era. Fans expect to be able to stream, post, and connect in real time. If Celtic Park becomes a place where that’s actually possible — where journalists can upload content, fans can share the atmosphere, and people can interact without having to walk halfway down London Road — that’s progress.
And that’s exactly the kind of progress we need to see more of.
The club has to modernize the matchday experience. We’ve heard talk about a new Head of Commercial Development. Well, here’s an area crying out for that kind of attention. Improving how supporters experience Celtic Park, from food to Wi-Fi to entertainment, should be part of that role.
Because ultimately, it’s about respect for the supporters. Tens of thousands of people pay serious money to be there, week after week, and the least they should expect is to be able to share that experience with the outside world.
So, whatever work is about to be done to improve coverage around Celtic Park, bring it on.
For those of us who work in the digital space around the club, even a ten percent improvement will feel like a giant leap forward. This has been driving us nuts for far too long. A fix is long overdue — and very, very welcome.