Financial consequences from Celtic Champions League playoff with LASK
Banking this season’s Champions League cash will further increase the financial gap that exists between Celtic and the latest Ibrox club…
Tonight sees Celtic attempt to make the Champions League group stages as they take on Austrian Champions LASK, with a potential £40 million bounty up for grabs.
As a Celtic supporter you want to see our club compete with Europe’s elite, but the financial aspect for the club is also vital, due to the lack of broadcasting and therefore commercial revenue available in the Scottish footballing market.
So it goes without saying that qualification for the Champions League is vital for our club, as it helps us build up a strong financial foundation, which can be the difference in attracting quality players to the club.
Another incentive is to further the financial gap that exists between ourselves and our rivals across the city, that being Conference League hopefuls the Rangers.
The latest Ibrox club have failed to qualify for the Europa League after losing to an internet password, so now they find themselves battling to stay in Europe via the much less financially attractive third tier Conference League.
We want to qualify for the Champions League proper, as that’s where we aspire to be as a club. But even in the event of failing to do so we still have the safety net of the Europa League, which whilst much less financially rewarding than the UCL, it’s still more luxurious when you compare it to the Conference League’s tiny pay outs.
But overcoming LASK, and reaching Europe’s top footballing competition will widen that already gigantic gap that exists between ourselves and the latest Ibrox club, who are quite frankly a financial basket case. Despite having new ‘rich’ investors, they still rely on share issues to build up any sort of transfer kitty.
Not only are we streets ahead on the park, as our honours haul more than proves when compared to the combined efforts of the two clubs that have called Ibrox home, we are miles ahead off the park, and a win tonight would go a long way in widening that gap even further.
Celtic has failed in too many of these Champions League playoffs to take anything for granted. The support, the players and the management staff all led by Martin O’Neill will have to be at our combined very best this evening to build a lead to take back to Linz next Tuesday.
Ideally we can will by a decent margin tonight to put the tie beyond the Austria side, or at least give them a mountain to climb in the foothills of the Alps. That would be perfect but the realist in me would settle for any sort of advantage to take into the second leg in Austria.
