About Celtic Park
Celtic Park is a football stadium in the Parkhead area of Glasgow, Scotland. It is the home ground of Celtic Football Club. With a capacity of 60,411, it is the largest football stadium in Scotland and the eight-largest stadium in the United Kingdom. It is often referred to by fans as "Paradise".
Celtic formed in 1887 and the first Celtic Park opened in Parkhead in 1888. The club moved to the current site in 1892. The stadium has been redeveloped several times, most notably in the mid-1990s when it was converted into an all-seater stadium. The main stand, built in 1929 by Archibald Leitch, is a listed building.
The stadium is renowned for the intense atmosphere generated by the fans, especially on European nights. Lionel Messi once described it as "the best atmosphere in Europe." The "Lisbon Lions" stand honors the team that won the European Cup in 1967, the first British club to do so. A statue of club founder Brother Walfrid stands outside the main entrance.
The freehold is owned outright by Celtic FC plc, a public limited company listed on the London Stock Exchange Alternative Investment Market (AIM) since 1995 under ticker CCP.L. The 1.6-hectare plot at 95 Kerrydale Street in the Parkhead ward of Glasgow was leased for 999 years from Sheriff Officer Hugh Callan in November 1892 at an annual ground rent of 240 pounds, a lease later converted to full freehold in 1968 for a lump sum of 82,000 pounds. Between 1995 and 1998 the ground was reconstructed in three phases by contractors Barr Construction of Ayr under a fixed-price contract of 40 million pounds, and the North Stand was originally to have carried a museum wing that was quietly dropped from the specification during value-engineering discussions in 1996.