Despite Rangers’ exit from the Europa League tonight, it’s ended up potentially stunning news, because Steven Gerrard’s men’s achievements in Europe the past few seasons are now confirmed as allowing the Scottish champions to be group entrants for 22/23 Champions League bar the unlikely event of Liverpool winning this season’s competition.

This guarantees the winners big big rewards financially that season plus guaranteed glamour nights at Ibrox, in the event of 56, as Champions League football will be guaranteed to the title champions next season.

It’s truly outstanding, and has occurred as a result of Ukrainian slip ups, meaning Scotland have finished this season 11th in the rankings and get one team guaranteed in the group stage season after next.

And that team could well be us.

It means a minimum of £15M for getting in the group stage, and potentially double if Celtic fail at their qualifiers, while massively hiked revenue throughout the competition compared to the UEL’s modest plunder by comparison.

So, while this evening was painful, the CL developments most definitely are not.

Of course, next season’s CL Rangers will enter in at the qualifiers, so work still to be done to secure it this summer, but the groundwork is laid and we could still well be looking at those glamour nights next season regardless.