One of the UK’s greatest stadiums is getting renamed for the first time ever

Stadiums change their names all the time – even the mahoosive, national-grade ones. Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium became the Principality in 2016, Edinburgh’s Murrayfield was re-christened Scottish Gas Murrayfield in 2023 and Twickenham became the Allianz Stadium in 2024.

Whether people actually start calling venues by the new name is another matter – has anyone actually stopped saying ‘Twickenham’ yet? – but now yet another major UK stadium has had a rebrand. This time it’s Hampden Park, the Glasgow home of the Scottish national football teams.

As of last December, the venue is called Barclays Hampden. This is thanks to a landmark sponsorship deal between the Scottish Football Association (FA) and the bank and financial services company, and it marks the first time ever that the naming rights for Hampden Park have been sold. The partnership between the 122-year-old ground and Barclays is reportedly long-term and worth about £1 million a year.

Hampden Park has been in the process of updating all its signs. The latest sign-change has involved a planning application to the local council to install a huge ‘Barclays Hampden’ logo at the front of the stadium, with a decision due by April 9.

The Glasgow stadium opened in 1903 and is owned by the Scottish FA. Famous for the ‘Hampden Roar’ (its particularly deafening atmosphere), Hampden Park regularly hosts Scotland’s national games and the semi-finals and finals of the Scottish Cup and Scottish League Cup. It’ll be a host stadium when England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland host Euro 2028.

Interestingly the current Barclays Hampden wasn’t the first Hampden Park football stadium in Glasgow. Another venue in Southside opened in 1873 and claims the title of ‘world’s oldest football stadium’, though it’s now a bowling club that is threatened by development.

The sponsorship of Hampden Park has been opposed by some. The move was called ‘truly shocking and shameful’ by the Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee, which accused Barclays of being involved with weapons manufacturing companies.

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