CELTIC are in line for an amazing £40 million windfall if Brendan Rodgers can negotiate his way through the 8 tricky qualifiers over the summer to reach the Group Stages of the Champions League for the third season in a row.
UEFA yesterday announced a significant increase in prize money for their competitions and Celtic are ideally placed to take advantage – should their Champions League objective be met.
Last season Celtic scooped around £30million – funds that Dave King jealously eyes from across the city – and the latest news from UEFA means that his headache and Celtic’s windfall will rise by another £10million to reach £40million.
UEFA will be increasing revenues across the Champions League, Europa League and the Super Cup as they benefit form increased broadcast and commercial revenues for their competitions. Their income is set to rise this season to an incredible £2.85 Billion, which is some £800m than last season. This will result in a prize pot of around £2.23 Billion with the Champions League Clubs scooping the biggest slices.
Celtic can expect to earn a guaranteed £13.35m for making the group stages, plus £2.36m for a win and nearly £800,000 for a draw. There will be bonuses for progressing through each round of the knock-out stages, with the winner collecting a further £44.65m in prize money.
There are further payments that depend on each club’s record in Uefa competitions over the last 10 years and each club’s share of its national broadcast ‘market pool’.
A Champions League victory would be worth more than £100million to a British club next season.
Celtic will obviously have the gate money on top for the qualifiers and also the Group Stages and Brendan Rodgers will be targeting European football after Christmas again in the new season.
If Celtic do reach the Champions League stages, it looks like Dave King’s ‘pack of cards’ theory will have to go on the back burner.
