Amid all the chaos of Saturday and Sundays’ developments with Lawrence Shankland was the official confirmation of where Rangers are to begin next season’s European endeavours.
‘Thanks’ to our ‘old friends’ at Parkhead winning the Scottish Cup, it is confirmed that Rangers are a seeded club in the third qualifying round of the Europa League.
Rangers’ opponents are one of (so far):
- R.S.C. Anderlecht — BEL — 30.750
- FC Midtjylland — DEN — 48.250
- Jagiellonia Białystok — POL — 22.000
- PAOK FC — GRE — 48.250
- Heart of Midlothian F.C. — SCO — 11.500
- Górnik Zabrze — POL — 9.350
Yes, Hearts will likely be there after failing in the Champions League qualifiers, but Anderlecht and Midtjylland will be tough.
But we now finally know where we are.
Expectations?
We can’t say the arrival of Shankland makes us leap up and down and expect to win the thing. Far from it, he’s not got a lot of Euro experience and we’ve completely tempered expectations in Europe under Rohl. He was horrendous last season and unless he’s learned A LOT we don’t expect much this time round either.
Especially if the draw isn’t terribly kind.
But we are there. Financially it’s crap. It’s not the lucre we’ve missed out on in the Champions League, and that’s a painful blow. But on top of potential player sales (Fernandez, Raskin and Chermiti) and that share issue Rangers can still make some reasonable numbers. EL doesn’t earn a lot – 175K Euros per stage won unless qualifying for the league phase. Which itself is about £3.5M. Add up TV rights, coefficient and gate receipts not to mention prize money and it can get to a decent £10M-£20M depending.
Add the potential revenue from the share issue and the player sales as mentioned and Rangers could have some decent cash there.
But the loss of UCL is such a huge blow.
And now we know for sure what we’re preparing for this summer in terms of European qualifiers.
In all honesty, Ibrox Noise would have preferred the Conference League.
But Europa League here we come. Yet again.