UEFA have announced the four countries that could act as neutral venues for European qualifiers in the coming months.
Neil Lennon’s Celtic will begin their journey for Champions League qualification in just under a fortnight.
The Hoops will enter the competition at the first qualifying round – needing to win four consecutive ties to make it to the group stage.
The first three of those will be played as one leg, either home or away, but now the third option of a neutral venue has emerged.
As the Daily Record report, UEFA qualifiers unable to be played in the home country due to travel restrictions will be moved to a neutral venue.
This will be in either Poland, Hungary, Greece or Cyprus, after the four countries offered to stage matches.
UEFA thank four countries for “cooperation”
A UEFA statement said: “In order to comply with travel restrictions and quarantine requirements issued by authorities, some matches may need to be moved to neutral countries/stadia and the detailed scenarios were presented.
“In this respect, UEFA, thanks four associations for their cooperation (Poland, Hungary, Greece and Cyprus), which means that it has been able to provide neutral venue hubs, with these countries making some of their stadiums available on the scheduled match dates and offering a travelling corridor to the teams to come and play the match without restrictions.”
UEFA are already hosting the finale of this season’s Champions League and Europa League’s in “hubs” in Portugal and Germany respectively.
Celtic will find out their first round opponents on Sunday, with the second round draw made on Monday.
In others news, Peter Martin has delivered a further social media update on Celtic’s pursuit of Steven Fletcher.
Receive a digest of our best Celtic content each week direct to your mailbox
