Celtic’s pre-season training camp in Slovenia got off to a turbulent start tonight after staff at Maribor shut the airport before the Parkhead club had landed.

The Ladbrokes Premiership champions were meant to land in Maribor tonight at 7pm UK time prior to kick-starting their pre-season tour but instead spent over an hour stuck across the Croatian border in Zagreb Airport after a last-minute reroute.

Brendan Rodgers and his Celtic players arrived at Glasgow Airport at 1pm this afternoon to board their chartered flight – which was being provided by Romanian Airline Carpatair – and were due to take off at 3.15pm.

However, due to a delay with loading the bags in Scotland the flight didn’t take to the sky until almost two hours later.

The two hour and 20 minute flight appeared to be going according to plan until Hoops stars such as Kieran Tierney, Leigh Griffiths and Scott Brown were notified by their captain that the airport at their destination had in fact closed.

They were then told that the flight would be diverted to Zagreb 125 kilometres away.

Once on the ground, Celtic’s players and staff were forced to sit about in the baggage claim area and wait for a bus to take them on the two-hour journey across the border to their training base in the small Slovenian city.

A notice on the Maribor Airport website failed to give any explanation for the decision, instead just putting a notice on their site stating the flight had been cancelled.

It is far from ideal preparation ahead of Rodgers’ first game in charge of Celtic, which will take place on Thursday against NK Celje at the Arena Petrol.