CELTIC tonight hit back at the Scottish government - and revealed that Holyrood approved their warm-weather training break in Dubai back at the start of November.

A Scottish government statement today urged the SFA to "look into" the Parkhead club's trip to the United Arab Emirates during the Covid-19 pandemic after putting the country into full lockdown.

And they warned that travel exemptions for international and European competition could be removed if they felt that elite sports teams were abusing them.

However, the quadruple treble winners have stressed that both the SFA and SPFL as well as Holyrood gave the go-ahead to the trip way back on November 12.

A Celtic statement read: "The training camp was arranged a number of months ago and approved by all relevant footballing authorities and the Scottish government through the Joint Response Group on November 12, 2020.

"The team travelled prior to any new lockdown being in place, to a location exempt from travel restrictions. The camp, the same one as we have undertaken for a number of years, has been fully risk assessed.

"If the club had not received Scottish government approval then we would not have travelled."