Celtic have announced a summer tour of Japan- without the names of opponents or the dates of the matches.
It seems strange to announce pre-season plans before they have been finalised with a follow up tweet announcing a stop off in South Korea.
Celtic have the option of playing local J-League sides or visiting European clubs, playing in stand alone friendlies or in some sort of mini-tournament but detail so far is thin on the ground.
A match against Yokohama F Marinos would seem the most logical fixture, over the last two years Ange Postecoglou, Daizen Maeda and Tomoki Iwata have all moved to Celtic from the same club.
Late this morning Celtic announced:
We are delighted to announce that Celtic will be visiting Japan this summer for a fantastic pre-season tour.
Following an initial European training camp, the team will take part in a week-long visit to Japan, with the exciting details to be officially announced in the coming days.
Celtic has previously visited Japan some years ago in 2006 and we are looking forward to another successful visit.
Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou said: “We are really looking forward to our summer tour to Japan, and we’re sure it will be hugely successful for the club and excellent preparation for next season.
“Clearly, Celtic has a real, long-standing connection with Japan, through previous visits and players such as Shunsuke Nakamura and, of course, now through our current squad members, so it will be great to visit and really bring this relationship to life.
The SPFL season will restart on August 5/6 which would suggest that some point in the last two weeks of July would be the best time to play in Japan.
Although primarily a football event to step up fitness for the new season the trip will also be a commercial opportunity for Celtic to connect with a distant but connected market place.
? OH yes! ?#CelticFC will also travel to Korea this summer on our pre-season tour! ???
More details to follow in the coming days… ? pic.twitter.com/E1YQHrdFRB
— Celtic Football Club (@CelticFC) May 2, 2023
Bring some Japanese referees back.