Rangers could very well be playing in the UEFA Europa Conference League in the 2026/27 campaign.
The plan, undoubtedly, for the Light Blues will be to qualify for the Europa League, but things do not always go as planned.
The chance of winning silverware increases with the Conference League, but the revenue is going to be significantly lower.
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Adam Williams, GRV Media’s Head of Finance and Governance Content, explained the concept of a “value pillar” in UEFA’s competitions.
That is the minimum amount a specific club will get from competition in a particular competition, which is excluding the money generated from results.
In the Champions League, they were guaranteed to get at least £29m, which they will be missing out on due to not winning the Scottish Premiership.
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Williams told Rangers News: “In each of the three UEFA competitions, there is a floor and a ceiling. The floor for each is pretty simple to work out, and that is what Rangers’ budgeting team will use as their baseline assumption.
“In the Champions League, you get a floor of about £16.5m as an entry fee, plus money from the so-called ‘value pillar’, which is based on your five and 10-year coefficients and your country’s UEFA TV deal.
“For Rangers, the value pillar would be worth about £12m, or thereabouts. So you’re getting a minimum of just shy of £29m – that is your floor. But obviously, if you get a few results, that starts to rise, because every three points is worth almost £2m. It’s the same in the Europa and the Conference Leagues, albeit to a more modest extent.”
Why £10m revenue from Conference League may not be a boon
While the Gers are guaranteed £10m in revenue from competing in the Conference League, it may not be enough for them to generate a profit.
This is because certain clauses in contracts would mean that players will automatically get a bonus for qualifying for Europe, and that means it needs to be made up by going until a certain stage of a competition.
The reduced number of home games is also an added disadvantage, as in the Conference League, one only gets three matches in front of their own fans.
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Williams continued: “In the Europa, your entry fee is a bit less than £4m, plus a value pillar of maybe £2-3m. In the Conference, the entry fee is around £2.5m and the value pillar will barely register – £1m, maybe.
“On top of those three sets of baselines, you’ve got matchday income. That’s a bit more predictable because Rangers will pretty much always sell out. Obviously, you can’t charge as much for a Conference League dead rubber against a no-mark from Kosovo as you would against, say, Real Madrid in the Champions League, but you’re working from the low-end estimate upwards.
“In the Conference League, you also only get three home matches, not four like you would in the other two competitions, so there’s less revenue through the turnstiles in that respect.
“In terms of total revenue, I’d say Rangers would be budgeting for £40m from the Champions League at the high end, £20m in the Europa League and then maybe £8-10m. Remember, though, that’s revenue, not profit.
“The difference between the Champions League and the other two competitions is even more stark when you’re looking at your bottom line, not your top line. If you have a poor season in the Conference League, it’s possible you could lose money, depending on how your contracts are set up.
“That said, your odds of winning the Conference League are obviously much better, and the long-term benefits of something like that can have a real galvanising commercial impact. That’s a remote possibility at present, of course, but it’s something Rangers fans should consider.”
