What awaits Celtic and Rangers on their return to the Champions League?

For only the third time in 20 seasons there will be two Scottish teams in the Champions League group stage. It goes without saying that they are Celtic and Rangers. On Saturday they will meet in the Premiership. Next week they will be in the highest-level competition in Europe. How might they get on?

Let us start by putting the Old Firm in context.

If Celtic and Rangers were playing in England they might currently be paying the fourth and fifth highest wage bills – not in the Premier League but in the Championship.

In 2020-21, the last season for which all accounts have been published, Celtic’s payroll was £52 million and Rangers’ was £48m. They paid a bit less than Bournemouth. Bournemouth are now in the Premier League but what hope would anyone give them in the Champions League?

Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham are the Premier League’s representatives in the Champions League this season. In 2020-21 their wage bills were £355m, £333m, £314m and £205m. On average in recent seasons an English Champions League club have been able to pay their players about six times as much as Celtic or Rangers.

In the last few Uefa Club Licensing reports the Scottish Premiership has ranked 12th or 13th in Europe for wage levels. This will be the 20th season in which the Champions League has consisted of a group stage followed by knockout rounds. In a country-by-country table based on results in the group stages Scotland would be 13th.

The top five countries in that table would be England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France. The five highest-ranked countries for wages in the Uefa Club Licensing reports have been England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France.

It is possible that Celtic and Rangers can obtain better value in the transfer market than an English Championship club. They can offer European football of some sort every season and a reasonable hope of domestic medals.

When Celtic and Rangers have played in the Champions League their results suggested that in those seasons they could have finished in the third quarter of the Premier League – somewhere between 11th and 15th.

If Celtic and Rangers did play in the Premier League, I should add, they would have much larger incomes, be able to afford even better players and could potentially finish higher.

Over the last 19 seasons in the Champions League group stage Scottish clubs averaged six points. Celtic appeared more often than Rangers and achieved better results, but when they did appear there was not much difference in results.

How might they fare this season?

Both halves of the Old Firm have got a draw that in one sense they would have wanted but in another sense they would not have wanted – they have been put in groups with a glamorous but exceptionally good opponent.

Celtic start in Group F on Tuesday at home to Real Madrid, who won the Champions League last season. Rangers start in Group A on Wednesday away to Ajax and in later weeks they will face Liverpool, runners-up in the Champions League last season.

I rated all clubs in each group as well as I could on the basis of performances when they were in the Champions League before and their standing now related to their standing then. My personal estimate of the most likely finishing positions are third for Celtic in Group F and fourth for Rangers in Group A.

I will be delighted if both achieve better than I consider most likely. Whatever happens, it is good to have Glasgow, the birth city of modern football, represented not once but twice in the Champions League again.

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