Earlier tonight, the Ibrox club played their latest European fixture, securing a late draw in Greece. They’re feeling pretty upbeat, and the media’s already running stories on how much cash they’ve banked off the back of that match—£135,000, to be precise.
Now, fair play to them; every little helps, but it’s hardly transformative. Meanwhile, we played on Tuesday in the Champions League, where the stakes, the opposition, and the rewards are all significantly higher. Our take-home from that game alone was just over £2 million.
That match added another point to our tally, taking us to seven in the group.
With each win worth £2 million and each draw £750,000, we’ve already raked in £4.75 million purely in prize money from our results so far. And as things stand, we’re in a strong position to secure further points and possibly a top-eight finish, which would guarantee us £11 million for progressing to the Round of 16.
Let’s talk for a moment about the positional prize money, an often-overlooked yet highly lucrative part of the Champions League group stages. UEFA allocates a significant pot for this, divided into 666 shares, each valued at €275,000. The lowest-ranked team in the group stage gets a single share, while the highest-ranked side takes home 36 shares, or €9.9 million (£8.6 million).
This setup means that the higher up the group stage rankings we finish, the more money we bank. For instance, if we finish just outside the top eight, say in 10th place, that alone is worth around £6.4 million to us. Any finish within the top 16 guarantees a minimum of £5 million in additional prize money.
Here’s the full table of positional earnings in pounds:
1st Place: £8,613,000
2nd Place: £8,373,750
3rd Place: £8,134,500
4th Place: £7,895,250
5th Place: £7,656,000
6th Place: £7,416,750
7th Place: £7,177,500
8th Place: £6,938,250
9th Place: £6,699,000
10th Place: £6,459,750
11th Place: £6,220,500
12th Place: £5,981,250
13th Place: £5,742,000
14th Place: £5,502,750
15th Place: £5,263,500
16th Place: £5,024,250
17th Place: £4,785,000
18th Place: £4,545,750
19th Place: £4,306,500
20th Place: £4,067,250
21st Place: £3,828,000
22nd Place: £3,588,750
23rd Place: £3,349,500
24th Place: £3,110,250
25th Place: £2,871,000
26th Place: £2,631,750
27th Place: £2,392,500
28th Place: £2,153,250
29th Place: £1,914,000
30th Place: £1,674,750
31st Place: £1,435,500
32nd Place: £1,196,250
33rd Place: £957,000
34th Place: £717,750
35th Place: £478,500
36th Place: £239,250
This is why the Champions League is the true high-stakes competition, and these figures show just how much is on the table for clubs that can secure a strong finish. The more points we collect, the more financially advantageous it becomes.
Just taking in these numbers shows why it’s so crucial to not only perform well this season but also secure a return to this level next year.
Meanwhile, our city rivals might be celebrating their modest windfall, but when you look at these figures, it’s clear the Champions League money is on another level. If we continue to bank this kind of income and channel it into squad improvements, it could create a financial chasm that becomes nearly insurmountable for them to bridge in just a few seasons.
Ultimately, this is the stage we belong on. We’re earning sums here that dwarf the bonus payments for winning the Scottish Premier League.
If we’re not setting our sights on the Champions League every year, we’re selling ourselves short.
I’m hesitant to get ahead of ourselves here James as all of our remaining games will be very, very tough (our opponents all have the same financial carrot to incentivise them). And there are many big teams in the Europa League who probably feel they should be in the Champions League (Porto, Ajax, Lazio, Man Utd).
What this tells me is that we need to be financially strong to have some yo-yo seasons between UCL and EL. And where we have to go through UCL qualifiers that we have our transfer business done as early as possible.
Good point about getting players in early in Summer 2025 Porto Joe…
Because unless we win it – Qualifiers it’s gonna need to be !
And another thing…I don’t know if it’s the novelty of the new or a genuine improvement to the European formats (minded to the latter) but credit to UEFA for seeing that the old group stage format had become as tired, formulaic and boring as the early weeks of Strictly Come Dancing.
I’m sure I am not the only one who when he sees the single league table can’t help but think that this is the beginnings of a European League. And then when I see some of the big names near the bottom I worry that the rules will be changed as it was never intended that (say) Brest finish top 8 and PSG drop out. On this point I think sporting integrity will not even be considered a thing!
As PortoJoe says I think this already is a euro super league but they can’t expand it further until it’s worth more than the EPL. For Celtic though, as the gap between us and Aberdeen and the rest grows, we could prioritise European games since that’s where the money is for us and we’d be more able to keep players fit and fresh than some of our euro opponents. They won’t tweak the format again for a few years at least. It’s an opportunity for us.
And another thing… with the new format meaning teams play group games until the end of January, it undermines the January transfer window. We certainly won’t sell with such big games on the horizon and the same will be true for all clubs in Europe competition.
Funnily enough I was looking into all of this yesterday too, just out of interest of just how much money we could be looking at.
If as we assume as a minimum we make the playoffs that alone will see us earn a further 1 million euros…
I seen this morning an article on Google News stating “under pressure Clemont guides Rangers to a draw” since when is guiding to a draw something to shout about.. & other articles boasting there paltry sums just seem odd. Although maybe they are starting to report on this team as the minnows they are. If a team like Kilmarnock was earning these figures it would be regarded as significant so I guess a team who are in similar financial positions or worse actually deserve to have the small wins celebrated.
Why are we even mentioning and comparing ourselves to the Glasgow Espanyol, they are irrelevant….end of.