CRAIG BROWN, the former Scotland manager, insists that Celtic Park is a far better venue for international football than Hampden Park and that the rebuilding of the national stadium in the late 1990s failed to create a suitably intimidating venue.
The Scottish Football Association's lease on the ground ends in 2020 with opting not to renew the agreement and taking matches around the country one option put forward to them by a consultancy firm earlier this year.
Brown admits that may have to become reality unless a huge amount of money can be raised to reconstruct areas of Hampden from scratch once again and transform it into the kind of arena to rival Celtic Park or Ibrox Stadium. "If you have unlimited money, you rebuild it and keep it on the same site, rejig it," he said.
"If not, you might have to compromise and start sharing the internationals around and make every one a scramble for tickets. I don't want to fall out with the SFA. Hampden Park is the spiritual home of Scottish football. Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, they didn't rebuild it as well as they could have.
"It would have cost a lot more money, but they could have built a really intimidating stadium on the same site. It still is intimidating because the crowd is good and very vociferous, but it doesn't have the same atmosphere, it is not claustrophobic, with that crowd right on top of you. Celtic Park is far better."
Brown is looking forward to seeing Scotland step out in front of a home crowd in the cauldron of Celtic Park to face the Republic of Ireland in a hugely important qualifying match for Euro 2016 tomorrow night.
He guided the national side to Euro 96 and the 1998 World Cup with Celtic Park proving a lucky venue in the second of those campaigns. Brown's side defeated both Austria and Latvia in the east end of Glasgow in addition to recording a crucial 1-0 win over Sweden at Ibrox while Hampden was being reconstructed.
"When I was manager, the players seemed to prefer playing at Celtic Park and Ibrox," he said. "There was a feeling among the players that Celtic Park, in particular, was a favourite.
"If they are being honest, even the guys from across the city loved to play at Celtic Park. It is enclosed, the fans are on top of you, the atmosphere is great and it's intimidating for the opposition.
"I wouldn't want to condemn Hampden because we've had some great occasions there.
"The pitch has always been top class, but the atmosphere ... after the improvements at Celtic Park, in terms of car parking and access, things like that, it's just a better venue.
"Go to Italy. They don't have a national stadium. They play
in Rome, Milan, Naples. Spain is the same. We could have
done that, but, you see, there is this problem of neutrality in Scotland. It is an issue when it comes to cup finals and the Old Firm are involved."
Hampden's redevelopment, hit by financial problems and an investigation by the Fraud Squad, had cost just under £60m to develop when the project was concluded in 1999, but Brown accepts the money might well have been more wisely utilised. "I don't want to sound as if I'm slamming the SFA or saying that the money used for Hampden could have gone into youth development, but there's an argument for it."
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