Pavel Královec will referee Celtic’s Champions League qualifier against Shakhter Karagandy.
The 35-year-old from the Czech Republic took charge of three Champions League group matches last season as well as Arsenal’s 2-0 home defeat from Bayern Munich in the last 16.
Královec is on the short list of officials for the 2014 World Cup and has been on the FIFA list since 2005.
Tomorrow’s match will be the first time that a Scottish team has played in Kazakhstan but it won’t be an entirely new experience for three Celtic players.
Beram Kayal, Georgios Samaras and Mikael Lustig have all played against teams from Kazakhstan with Lustig scheduled for a return trip on September 10 with Sweden on international duty.
Last September the defender helped Sweden to a 2-0 win over Kazakhstan in Stockholm although Samaras’ experience of Kazakhstan is a little more distant. In 2005 the Celtic striker helped Greece to a 2-1 win in a European Championship u-21 qualifier.
In 2009 Kayal helped Maccabi Haifa to a 0-0 draw away to FC Aktobe before winning the return match 4-3 despite finding themselves 3-0 down at one stage.
Celtic will train at the Astrana Arena tonight as Neil Lennon’s squad prepare to play on an artificial surface for the third round running.
Amido Balde, Anthony Stokes, Tom Rogic and Derk Boerrigter are included in the Celtic squad despite missing Saturday’s win over Aberdeen through injury.
Celtic have until 11pm tonight to make a signing eligible for the return leg at Celtic Park next Wednesday.
“Celtic have until 11pm tonight to make a signing eligible for the return leg at Celtic Park next Wednesday.”
What’s the chances ——-a big fat 0 HH
Mark is it not 11pm tonight for tomorrow’s game and then 11pm next Monday for the return leg? I agree with u though , there is no chance we are spending money on new players
Mate it could be 11pm next julember and we still won’t get a quality player, we’ll get someone before September but what we get is anybody’s guess, Peter lawwell once said ‘ the plan is to exit the transfer window stronger than we entered it ‘ epic fail coming up pedro HH
Its not that we are not wanting to sign but the quality level of the player we are looking at. They are all iffy in that they are all squad players thus faf apart from finny…… but we are offering too little too close him down.
Anyone would think we haven’t spent 5+ million on 3 new players
Great the teams sorted, just thought I would have a moan for the sake of it. The teams lacking in quality in the middle to front area even the players are saying it the 4 players brought are good players but we need at least 1 top striker and a midfielder who can get on the ball get his head up and pick a pass, we will get by with what we have in Scotland but in Europe we need players who make the difference HH
Exactly. What people are forgetting is that we have lost about 6 7 players over the summer . The thing is am not asking for superstars. But at least use the hooper and wanyama money to bring in 4 or 5 good players. And that’s not them even touching last years champ money. The fans deserve more from that board
We have a very good group off young player So why why must we all ways Have to bye a new player give the young player a change HailHail