Old Firm

Old Firm
other names	Glasgow Derby
Celtic fans (left) and Rangers fans (right) seperated by police at Celtic Park at the Old Firm on 29th April 2012. This was the final Old Firm before Rangers' demotion to the Scottish Third Divison, having at this point already been deducted 10 points from that season's Scottish Premier League for going into administration. Celtic won the match 3-0.
Locale	Glasgow, Scotland
Stadiums	Celtic Park (Celtic) Ibrox Stadium (Rangers)
First meeting	28 May 1888 Friendly Celtic 5-2 Rangers
Teams	Celtic Rangers
Meetings total	444
Most wins	Rangers (171)
Most player appearances	Alec Smith (87)
Top scorer	Ally McCoist (27)
Latest meeting	16 March 2025 Scottish Premiership Celtic 2-3 Rangers
Next meeting	4 May 2025 Scottish Premiership Rangers v Celtic
Largest victory	Celtic 7-1 Rangers 19 October 1957

The Old Firm is the collective name for the Scottish football clubs Celtic and Rangers, who are both based in Glasgow. The origin of the term is unclear but may derive from the two clubs' initial match in which the commentators referred to the teams as "like two old, firm friends", or a satirical cartoon in The Scottish Referee sports newspaper prior to the 1904 Scottish Cup Final between the two sides depicting an elderly man with a sandwich board reading "Patronise The Old Firm: Rangers, Celtic Ltd", highlighting the mutual commercial benefits of their meetings. The name may also be a reference to these two teams being among the original 11 members of the Scottish Football League formed in 1890.

Their home stadiums, Celtic Park and Ibrox respectively, are just 4 miles (6 kilometres) away from each other.

The two clubs are the most successful in Scotland, between them having won 109 Scottish League championships (Rangers with 55 and Celtic with 54), 76 Scottish Cups (Celtic with 42 and Rangers with 34) and 50 Scottish League Cups (Rangers with 28 and Celtic with 22). Interruptions to their ascendancy have occurred infrequently, most recently with the challenge of the New Firm of Aberdeen and Dundee United in the first half of the 1980s. Since the 1985–86 season one half of the Old Firm has won the Scottish League consistently and every season since the 2018-19 season, both clubs have finished in the top two places.

The rivalry between the two clubs has become deeply embedded in Scottish culture and has contributed to the political, social and religious division in Scotland and also beyond, especially in Northern Ireland. Celtic was formed by an Irish Catholic priest for Irish immigrant boys in the poorest parts of Glasgow, so the club has historically been the club of the Catholics of Glasgow as well as Irish nationalists. Rangers, however, is historically the club of the Protestants of Glasgow, and especially Unionists, with much of the fanbase being extremely patriotic towards the United Kingdom. After World War One, Rangers even had an unwritten ban on signing Catholic players, which lasted until 1999 with the signing of Mo Johnston from Nantes, who himself was a former Celtic player, who had even agreed to return to the club that summer before the deal fell through.

In the early 2010s, Rangers began to suffer from financial difficulties and its holding company (The Rangers Football Club plc) was liquidated in 2012. Consenquently, the administrators sold Rangers' businesses and assets to the company Sevco Scotland Ltd., operated by businessman Charles Green. Green succesfully applied for membership of the Scottish Football League, and obtained the old company's Scottish Football Association membership, aftewards renaming Sevco The Rangers Football Club Ltd.. They then entered the Scottish Third Division in time for the 2012-13 season, with them returning to the top flight after winning the 2015-16 Scottish Championship. Celtic fans generally consider the current Rangers as a seperate entity from the pre-2012 club, often referring to them as Sevco (the original name of the post-2012 holding company) and consider that due to this, the Old Firm no longer exists. Instead, many Celtic fans (and often Celtic themselves) refer to the match as the Glasgow Derby. While the Scottish Football Association has not commented on whether they consider the current Rangers a continuation of the pre-2012 club or not, they are considered as a continuation by UEFA.

Rangers and Celtic have played each other 445 times: Rangers have won 171 matches, Celtic have won 170 and there have been 104 draws.