So it’s official. Rangers lose £60M for failing to make the Champions League group stage for a second season in a row.

Last season we lost out on around £35M, this time it’s a complete pot of gold.

Let us break down the revenue we’ve lost:

Prize money – basic is now £16M. Just for being there.

TV cash – £5M – TV cash rose this summer and is £10M for Scotland. That’s divided between all the teams. Would have been split between us and them. They get it all now.

Gate receipts – Rangers got £3M per home match in 22/23, and that was three matches. Now it’s four. So £12M for that.

Coefficient payment is stunning. Because of how well Rangers have done in Europe the past five years we have built up a massive individual coffer here, in the region of about £20M. It’s based on individual club performance, not country. Celtic won’t get that even for being there. But now we don’t either.

Now add the bonuses of drawing or winning, the increased merch, the performance bonuses and increased sponsorship Rangers would have secured in the UCL, and the total revenue level was about £60M based on those Champions League changes to format and rules. Winning the SPL alone last season was critical – the prize money in there plus the guaranteed UCL kitty would have been game-changing.

As it is, we’ve just gifted it to Celtic again who got the lot.

So the pain is real, it’s big, and there’s no quick solution here. We’ve given a rich club even more money, and shot ourselves in the foot.

There’s no solution, Celtic are now financially years ahead of us, and we’ve signed mainly rubbish for several windows.

And all we do is keep gifting them yet more goodwill. And the numbers in the Europa League are paltry by compare.

We can’t really spin this positively, unfortunately.