Celtic’s Euro earnings revealed, and it’s clear Rangers (sic) will be having a quiet January after their multiple European failures

Today, the Daily Record ran the numbers on what Europe is worth to Scottish clubs this season, and they make for painful reading across the city.

Celtic are guaranteed £11.16m from the Europa League, with a projected profit of £13.34m once the value pillar is added in.

Hearts are guaranteed £4.28m from their Conference League campaign, and are heading for £5.29m.

And the Ibrox side?

They have banked £923k.

That is less than Hibs and Motherwell, who both picked up £1.1m for exits that nobody outside of Easter Road and Fir Park will remember in a month.

The Ibrox side crashed out of two European competitions, and now somebody has to pay for it.

Less than a million quid for two European competitions.

Let that sink in.

It follows the shock exit at the hands of Jagiellonia Bialystok, and then the penalty shoot-out defeat to Jablonec in the Conference League play-off.

Two competitions, two exits, and not a single league phase night to show for it.

Now, I’m not here to pretend that Celtic’s European campaign has been perfect, because it hasn’t.

But we are in it, we are getting paid for it, and that is a gap the Ibrox club cannot simply wish away.

By my reckoning, we are talking about almost £20 million less in European revenue than they would have been counting on.

Their record Scottish summer transfer spend is going to come back and bite them in the backside.

Think about what they did in the summer.

By all accounts, they spent more than any club in the history of Scottish football on a transfer window.

And they did it with the Americans in the boardroom, who are not, as far as I am aware, a bottomless pit of funding.

You know?

They need to earn some money too.

You don’t spend a record amount on players and then watch that sort of European income disappear without it leaving a hole somewhere.

In my view, that hole is going to be in the January window.

The Ibrox hierarchy have already admitted the money has gone, and they are not exactly shouting about it.

The Daily Record reports that the club’s chief executive Jim Gillespie spoke to the Fan Advisory Board last month.

According to the report, he was candid about the European performances, and said they had fallen short of what the squad was capable of.

Finance director Sara Bishop then confirmed that the financial impact of the exit is still being worked through, and that “the club has lost income as a result”.

Of course, they’re quick to add that it’s “not expected to alter the plans already in place”.

Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?

Because the alternative is admitting that a record spend and a flop in Europe is a very bad mix.

Andrew Cavenagh and the Americans have been left to count the cost, and it is not going to be pretty.

Andrew Cavenagh has already intimated that this will be the case.

These revelations will only serve to influence that further.

I’ll be fair, you would expect the Ibrox hierarchy to talk down the damage at this point.

Nobody stands up and says the sums don’t add up.

But a club that has gone without European football for the first time since Pedro Caixinha was arguing with punters in a bush in Luxembourg is a club that has lost more than a few pound notes.

It has lost its shop window.

Then again, I can only go by the numbers the Record has put in front of us, and the final figures are not in until UEFA decide the value pillar.

Even so, the direction of travel is not hard to see.

And the money, for once, is sitting in our accounts, not theirs.

Up to now, they had been preening about having no European football to interrupt a surefire treble.

Remember that?

Not so long ago, the line from Ibrox was that missing out on Europe would leave them free to concentrate on a clean sweep at home.

No midweek travel and no distractions.

That was the spin, anyway.

And after such a poor European showing, I get the feeling that Derek McInnes wasn’t lying when he said he was envious of the fact Celtic were participating in European football.

Because it isn’t only about the football.

It’s about the money, and a club with a record spend is being outearned by Hearts, Hibs and Motherwell.

Nobody expected them to drop points against Dundee, Hugh Keevins included, but they did and the pressure is on.

That result mattered more than it looked at the time.

Even Hugh Keevins didn’t see it coming, and he usually has a fair idea which way the wind is blowing in that part of town.

But they dropped the points, and now added pressure comes with that.

Next up is an in-form St Johnstone at home, and then Hearts away.

It will be interesting to see where the Ibrox side are positioned after those two fixtures.

If they stumble again, the money talk and the league talk will merge into one big problem.

And there is no European income to cushion the fall.

One thing is for certain, though.

That record summer spend has put a serious hole in their finances, and Hearts are sitting on a nest egg of their own.

Don’t be surprised if the January window barely registers at Ibrox.

Nuff said…

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