As a follow up to our earlier good news about Scotland’s European coefficient performance, Ibrox Noise was contacted by regular Andrew Polson, who had this to add to the benefits:
If Scotland do drop to 11th place and we win the league then it’s a 99% certainty that Rangers will still automatically qualify by way of our very very high club coefficient. (25th now and closing in on the likes of Arsenal and Ajax…. Celtic a lowly 59th and dropping).
This is all facilitated in fact by UEFA changing who gets the automatic place from ‘Champions of Country’ in 11th place to highest-ranked club of all countries from 11th onwards.
Celtic, should they win the league, would STILL have to go through qualifiers but Rangers wouldn’t should they be victorious come May. Of course go one step further and win the Europa League then we wouldn’t have to worry about pesky coefficient points. Now that would be quite something.
The same also applies with the money for Champions League should both qualify. It’s now paid out under the 5-year club coefficient rather than the 10-year. So instead of Celtic getting £30 million to Rangers’ £20 million earned in 2022/23 (as quoted by former Managing Director Stewart Robertson) it would be Rangers who would earn £15-20 million more than Celtic.
It’s a big financial turnaround on the European front thanks to Rangers’ excellent form over the last 5 years and UEFA rewarding successful clubs more. This may be why Celtic are holding on to more cash ie they know they are potentially entering a period of shortfall in income streams. All of this is predicated of course on us winning the league which is an absolute must this season.
In simple terms, Celtic have been ghastly in Europe but have enjoyed the fruits of Rangers’ labour at that level, and with the rules now changing as to where the money goes, how it goes there, and how European achievement is measured, it is Rangers who could be set to benefit massively from our own good work.
And Celtic who could be about to ‘suffer’ from massive revenue drop unless they magically somehow get good at European football.
It could be a seismic shift financially and football-wise in Scotland where Celtic fall away and Rangers are back properly to number one.
What a terrible shame that would be…