Rangers have passed Celtic on the park to the extent that they can barely see us racing into the distance, but we have also been tipped to leave them in our dust off the pitch too.
Kieran Maguire, author of the Price of Football, believes that this season could be the year when the Light Blues finally claw back the financial gap that has hamstrung the Light Blues for so many years.
In an interview with Football Insider he explains why he thinks the tide as turned:
“The revenue gap was £69m in 2018 and it dropped to £11m in 2020.
“Celtic do have some advantages. Their stadium is a little bit bigger, they’ve got more hospitality boxes and things of that nature. So they are in a position to still generate more money from matchday sales.
“But if Rangers are successful in Europe and they do manage to get into the group stages of the Champions League, then I would certainly anticipate them generating more money in terms of total revenue than Celtic on the back of that.
“Champions League is absolutely critical as far as Scottish football is concerned because the value of the domestic TV deal is very modest. If you get into the group stages you’re looking at about £30m.
“Rangers also benefit from BT Sport spending so much on the rights because the Champions League has various pots of money, one of which is linked to how much your domestic broadcaster has put in terms of buying the rights.”
Maguire is right in terms of the Champions League riches, we’ve seen from Celtic’s accounts when they qualified for the group stages just how much of a difference it can make, however, we also have a merchandise deal that will see the club making figures not seen since the nineties on top of the various commercial deals set up by James Bisgrove and his team.
Stewart Robertson has also spoken about selling players this year too which, as long as the recruitment team are doing the job, will add further funds – there is a lot to be proud about as a Rangers fan just now but there is only one problem, what are we going to moan about now?