Celtic to lose out on £12 million in the Europa League

With Celtic’s Europa League group fate having been made, the club could miss out on as much as £12 million in the competition.

Celtic’s Europa League group has been decided, with UEFA announcing the group stage clubs on Friday. The Hoops have been drawn into Group H alongside French side LOSC Lille, Italian giants AC Milan and Czech club Sparta Praha.

Cross-town rivals Rangers were also among the mix, being drawn into Group D alongside Portuguese side Benfica, Belgium’s Standard Liege, and Polish side Lech Poznan. A decent group but nowhere near as tough as Celtic’s.

With UEFA’s announcement that stadiums will be able to host up to 30% of stadium capacity for the group stage with no away fans allowed as of yet. Even then, clubs may only host this amount of fans where their local rules currently permit it.

This lack of attendance could mean quite the cash loss for Celtic, with potentially just up to 18,000 fans available for group stage matches, as well as lacking the typical away fans who would travel to experience Parkhead’s matchday atmosphere.

Yet, with Scotland’s regulations currently in place, it could mean that little to no fans are allowed in Celtic Park anyways, potentially missing out on up to £10-12million according to The Celtic Star.

The lack of funds couldn’t come at a worse time, with many clubs already struggling in light of the global pandemic and Celtic could always do with the extra cash to bring in new players. Thankfully though, it looks like the club are not planning to sell any players to make up for the losses.

As for Hoops fans, missing out on matches against another historic European club like AC Milan with the always-entertaining Zlatan Ibrahimovic would be quite a loss. The Bhoys on the pitch will also surely be missing the atmosphere of thousands of Hoops fans backing them in such important matches.