FERGUS McCann will make an emotional return to Celtic later this year as the club marks the 20th anniversary of his Parkhead takeover.
The businessman bought Celtic in 1994 and transformed their fortunes on and off the field following years of financial problems, during which Rangers dominated domestically.
Events will be held at the champions' Premiership clash with Inverness Caledonian Thistle on March 1 to pay tribute to Mr McCann and he will jet into Glasgow for the first home league fixture of the new season in August.
Chief Executive Peter Lawwell said: "We are delighted that Fergus has agreed to be our guest of honour at our first home match of next season.
"2014 is a very special year for Celtic, with a great deal happening for the club.
"It is a year of real significance as it marks the 20th anniversary of Fergus's takeover of Celtic.
"It is right that the special contribution he made to Celtic is marked in this way.
"Fergus's intervention in 1994 delivered the current Celtic Park, at the time the largest club stadium in Britain and, ultimately, he reestablished Celtic as a footballing force.
"He enabled supporters to take a stake in the club they loved, to be part of something and once again have pride in their team.
"His contribution has led directly to the position of health which our club is in today."
Three years after Mr McCann took control of the club Celtic ended Rangers' run of nine successive top flight titles as they lifted the SPL crown in 1997/98.
Mr McCann said: "It gives me great pleasure to see Celtic as such a successful and well-run club as it is today.
"That is credit to the faithful backing of the supporters, and also the investors."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article