We are a couple of rounds away from our interest in the Champions League qualifiers taking hold, but there is at least a tangential interest in tonight’s second qualification round match between Newco and Panathinaikos at Ibrox.
Scotland’s share of the TV pool will either go two ways, to one club only, or go back into the pot to be distributed across Europe – in the event no one from Scotland reaches the league stage. If Newco reach the league stage alongside Celtic, they would take over £2m of cash which would go to Celtic, were they to qualify as Scotland’s only contestant.
This may be enough for you to set aside feelings of native camaraderie and hope for the green and white of Greece to progress. Personally, I am more motivated to see Scotland’s coefficient rebound from its current lowly status. Champions League points are rewarded with most coefficient points, but they are so hard to collect. Conference League points earn the exact same return as those form the Europa League. Therefore, success in the Conference League is the dirty wee secret of fixing your lowly Uefa status.
The whole of Glasgow would probably agree that it’s best all round for Newco to compete in the Conference League, where even Hearts managed to win two games last season, and they were awful. The best chance Newco have of reaching the Conference League is to lose to Panathinaikos.
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Shoot
Goal ⚽️ ⚽️ ⚽️
On the rebound!
And lose they will
What larks – Paul67
Will it be quarter of a century before Celtic do us another wee turn in Europe?
Panathinaikos 3/1 with McBookie.
Bet responsibly.
My sincere hope is that R2ngers beat Panathinikos and maintain their chance of UCL-Qualification.
We have seen against Sporting and Newcastle that Celtic football club have come a long way in four seasons.
If anyone remembers watching our preseason game against the Hammers at Celtic Park, where we looked light years away from EPL clubs and European Conference League competitiors, they will know what I mean.
Yet, we know without domestic competition the PLC Board will not build on success.
Two Scottish teams in the UCL is what we need
The ambitions of the Hibs, Hearts and Aberdeen investors to see a return also says expectations in Europe will heighten among Scottish Clubs*
A high tide raises all ships – Celtic won’t do the heavy lifting on their own.
*Of course Paul67 is correct, Hearts were rank rotten and of as a result won’t be competing in Europe this season
Hail Hail
MON the Shamrocks
There is little worth in watching Sevco even less in Europe. The best way for coefficient points is to do it yourself. It’s in our own hands
In an impish mood are we Pablo?
Fun article.
Incoming polite, uninformed poking of holes.
Not a secret, let alone a dirty one.
Smart countries and associations have been taking advantage of this for decades.
I suppose it is a secret to the SFA & SMSM though.
Bonus points for reaching UCL league stage are lower than for the EL equivalent ….
… so national coefficient takes a wee hit.
wanting a rangers in the champions league. nae never
I thought before a ball was kicked or a draw was made that, if R2ngers make the Champions League proper?
.. they’ll certainly have earned it and deserve respect for that feature.
I think it’s unlikely but it could happen.
I think them ending up in the Conference League is equally or more unlikely but, again, it could happen.
If it does?
Suggest Celtic cyberspace runs a sweep on the date this comment first appears
“No reason why we can’t go and win this”
Saint Stivs @ 12:31 pm,
Yes – Totally Agree…
Luckily for us Rangers are extinct – so there is no chance of that happening;)
Hail Hail
Back to Basics – Glass Half Full @ 12:29 pm,
Truth!!
The other wee factoid is this…
They only play six games in the European Conference League
Hail Hail
Lovely to see 28 countries demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, but what they do about it is another story.
True to form, the moronic Yanks say the demands are totally wrong and should be directed at Hamas.
Cannot make this shit up.
My answer, is to get 5 or 6 top SAS guys in to take out Benjy Yahoo, they would not fail.
KINGLuBO
KL…I thought your answer was to nuke Israel. Killing Netanyahu is not the solution either…even his son is more extreme than he is…and the wife.
Sometimes it’s better to say nothing rather than making an arse of yourself…
Has Risky Ange taking Spurs to the bottom of the EPL utterly obliterated any chances of Rodgers getting out of Celtic before he gets found out in the CL play-off?
SS- Liverpool have very low number of season tickets, which drives up the price of single tickets
If the Huns do t win tonight, I think they’ll be playing a conference play off tie come the end of August – a winner take all, not where you’d want to be.
I know their gaffer was wanting to maybe shield their players from the pressure but if personally be aghast to hear a Celtic manager down play CL qualification.
Weebobbycollins @ 12:59 pm,
How very prescient:)))
Hail Hail
https://x.com/StokeyyG2/status/1947360473478758826
Aye, but can they do that on a cold Wednesday night in Dingwall?
bb – not totally true.
—————–
Liverpool have announced that season ticket and general admission prices at Anfield for the 2025-26 campaign will be frozen.
The club has said that as well as adult prices remaining the same for next season, junior tickets will remain at £9 for the 10th season in a row.
A 2% rise for 2024-25 led to protests from sections of home supporters, who refused to display flags in The Kop during the Europa League tie against Atalanta in April 2024.
In November, Liverpool fans joined counterparts from Everton, Manchester City and Manchester United in support of a Football Supporters’ Association (FSA) campaign regarding ticket price rises.
The club said on its website:, external “The club held meaningful engagement discussions with its official supporters board on ticket prices and is grateful for its important and significant contribution to those discussions.”
“The latest price freeze comes despite significant increases in Anfield matchday operating costs and continued rises in the cost of football operations in general.
“Alongside meaningful engagement with the supporters board, a survey was sent out to 500,000 Liverpool supporters last October, using the club’s ticketing database, asking for their views on a number of ticketing-related topics.
“More than 62,000 fans responded and access to tickets and the online purchasing process were highlighted as the primary concerns by the majority of supporters.
“The club will therefore start discussions with its supporters board on developing a range of ticketing policy changes during next season and beyond.”
Chairbhoy on 22nd July 2025 12:17 pm
You are , of course, perfectly entitled to your opinion but I suspect you are in a minority of one there.
I’m a simple man and take an unfailingly simple approach to Thems , and want them to lose every single game they play, preferably by a huge margin.
If there are negative consequences for , primarily , us and or, secondly by a long way , the rest of Scottish football I’ll worry about that later, although I can’t recall a game where them winning would , of itself, have a direct benefit to us, other than possibly for the co-efficient.
It’s an approach that has never yet failed me.
Weebobbycollins on 22nd July 2025 1:43 pm
https://x.com/StokeyyG2/status/1947360473478758826
Aye, but can they do that on a cold Wednesday night in Dingwall?
—————
Number 10 says he is looking forward to the world class breakfasts…….
Brendan Rodgers looking to win the Como Cup, to add to The Cork Super Cup after Saturdays mauling of Newcastle in the Adidas Trophy final, completing a pre season Treble.
Hoopy Days CSC
TLWIO @ 1:57 pm,
Well, you may be conflating the Rangers Football Club that died, and the current abomination at Ibrox.
In 2012 I was seriously chuffed when Rangers died, my sincere hope was that the “Old Firm” would disappear.
That of course didn’t happen.
So my next hope was that the remnants remaining at Ibrox, would understand that going forward, in order to maintain a quality side and competitive new team, the new Club they built would have to join the 21st Century.
Then we could then have a “New Old Firm”.
That of course didn’t happen.
Now of course, my prediction was correct and after a dozen years of flaffing about, the Ibroxiand have had to give up in abject failure.
They have now sold out.
So out to Corporate American
American Corporations “act” extremely ethically… why?
Amongst other things, they don’t like bad publicity and they don’t like getting sued, it costs.
Ibrox Clubs traditionally haven’t cared about bad publicity or getting sued; the establishment, media, support, try to cover that up for them.
This will be one huge culture change for their old guard.
BSR @ 11:50 am – Quoted a R2ngers Club statement, it ended as follows…
…”Tuesday’s huge match heralds the beginning of a new era for our great club, and another opportunity to show the very best of it to the watching world.”
Now, I’m not sure how many of you speak Corporate American, I’m not fluent but understand the basics…
Translated that means – we are going to make money, in order to do this we are going to project a professional, ethical and well run football club… any Zombie idiots that think they are going to screw that up for us will be out the door faster than their legs can carry them.
So, whether they like it or not, the Ibrox Club will be joining the 21st Century, the idiots and bigots they lose, will be replaced by supporters that want to follow a relatively successful and well run club.
And we will be getting the ‘New Old Firm”, that was my second choice all them years ago.
“…although I can’t recall a game where them winning would, of itself, have a direct benefit to us
Well on single game, maybe not, yet if they improve in the round, maybe yes.
You see, I have no confidence that the PLC Board will build, or even maintain, the elevated standards that we have recently achieved.
That took a huge amount of hard work, knowledge and skill to achieve.
As the past has shown us, without serious domestic competition, the PLC Board will throw that all away.
So the sooner the R2ngers get to a UCL – Level Club the better.
Hail Hail
9.10am
Thanks Tom
Budapest Lions doesn’t have the same ring …I’d take it though 👍🥴
Wee coincidence… B&I lions founded 1888
Why does that date ring a bell 🔔
If the Huns get to a CL level club then we’re goosed. Because outside of appointing some outstanding managers ( and fair play for doing that), there’s nothing else about us that operates at that level.
Chairbhoy
Absolute nonsense to suggest any Celtic supporter should be happy at the potential our closest rivals gaining a £4m benefit at our expense.
Effectively an £8m swing in terms of funds.
£4m potentially from us to them.
For me and most, I would imagine, except maybe your fan boy Bournesouprecipe, the beginning of avoidance of that starts tonight with Pana getting a decent result at Ibrox.
There are 2 more chances of course for them to slip up but the least cash in their coffers the better imo.
Should they qualify and if we also qualify it is a £4m swing in terms of money gap.
Should they qualify and we do not ( I accept you clearly think the latter is very unlikely whereas I am perhaps more cautious) the swing of £8m would bring them up significantly in bridging the gap.
The momentum it would give them would be off the scale. Either if the qualify and we do or if they qualify and we don’t.
Both failing to qualify would not be good. Although I obviously hope your will not make his previous mistakes in that regard.
From the other channel…..which I would not waste my time on such sleekit spyware.
[Westcraigs
July 22, 2025 1:06 pm
“20 years after rangers had an all seater stadium our board were telling us that celtic supporters didn’t want a modern stadium. This would have necessitated outside investment. Fergus offered to invest £6m in the late eighties, in return for a seat on the board. This offer was promptly declined. They didn’t want outsiders knowing what was happening at the club.
Another reason was that it is difficult if not impossible to falsify attendance numbers in an all seater stadium. Just count the empty seats.”]
%
Why don’t you mention that Celtic gave away almost half of the remaining turnstile intake, after 30% of the visible crowd were lifted over the turnstiles for free, up until 1994?
Celtic won the big cup etc, whilst giving away almost half of the home gate money of every home game, AND, 30% of the visible crowd got in for FREE!
And Sentinel Celts and all other Celtic sheep filled blogs, podcasts, and other pish, would say:
“Aye, WE’RE LUCKY NOW THAT OUR PLC DON’T STEAL ALL OUR MONEY FROM US LIKE THE THE EVIL KELLY’S AND WHITE’S DID.”
Timdumb is dead because of these soul sucking dumbfks!
The Kelly and White era of 30% of the home crowd getting in for free, was ended when Thatcher’s goons pulled the Hillsborough psyop about, terraces being unsafe all of a sudden, because of the deliberate overcrowding of the Liverpool end, causing 97 innocents to lose their lives. RIP the 97.
The media SCREAMED: “FOOTBALL TERRACES KILLED FOOTBALL FANS!”
All of this was because Thatcher’s government couldn’t control English International football fans hooliganism, so the dragnet plan was conducted on the back of the, deliberate, 1989 disaster.
In Scotland, Souness, David Murray, and later, Fergus McCann, went along with keeping most of our gate money “rigging” of Scottish football turning it into a backwater, were greed is good, and comradeship will be ruthlessly crushed.
Sentinel Celts claim to be PLC protesters BUT, they lie their arses off when it comes to the crunch, to make the PLC look more credible than the Kelly and White board, described above, who had their faults, and it wasn’t their fault that the government and media pushed the: “FOOTBALL TERRACES ARE DANGEROUS!” Scam.
But it was unfortunate timing as Desmond White was no longer alive to use his influence to rally a great resistance from Celtic, Liverpool, the actual Hillsborough Victims Man Utd, Everton, Nottingham Forest, West Ham Utd, and so many other of Celtic’s working class, footballing friends from England, to point out that Thatcher was trying to steal away the working man’s game of football, by seating every fan, turning fans into customers, and pretending it was for their safety?!
When did Thatcher ever care about the public’s safety?
But these sleekit posts and narratives, on Sentinel Celts and and other sheep filled echo chambers, were and are the order of the day when these BMCW clique posters posted on CQN, same insincere, fake, pretentious pish, and if ever there are Sentinel Celts posts about, boycotting season tickets to sack the pro Old Firm PLC, these posts are immediately piled on by the BMCW clique, and are met with BMCW saying: “Celtic will die if you don’t buy your season ticket, yadda, yadda, blah, blah, etc, etc.”
He actually said that lol before The Lions Roar ripped him a new one lol
And not ONE poster on SC/CQN, etc, etc, will mention that Celtic PLC and 7,000 Celtic fans agreed that Sevco were the same club as Rangers in 2016 after Sevco got promoted.
2012 Rangers vs Celtic ticket price £49.
After Sevco got promoted in 2016:
2016 Rangers vs Celtic ticket price £49.
And 7,000 Celtic season ticket holders bought these £49 tickets, and went into the Broomloan stand and sung:
“YOUR NOT RANGERS ANYMORE!”
As Jesus would say to post 1994 TIMS: “I NEVER KNEW YOU” who could blame him?
PS, If Rangers died, why did Celtic fans pay Rangers 2012 £49 ticket price to watch, Sevco vs Celtic in 2016 at Ibrox?
Rangers fans would not have covered up Celtic’s death, but Celtic fans covered up Rangers death!
And Celtic’s own sleekit fans who do know about this secret ticket scam will keep schtum to maintain the PLC deceit ongoing.
Celtic fans my arse!!!
An Dún @ 2:33 pm,
The group and interests that our principal shareholder represents are more than capable of upping their game IMO
The senior citizens taking residence in our Boardroom will have to go though – we will need quality, capable people in our Boardroom if we are to compete with real domestic competition.
WhoDidWeDominat🤔
Burnley78 @ 2:38 pm,
Your point of view makes perfect sense.
As An Dún suggests, there is a real and present danger that real UCL level competition will mean our current set up can’t deal with it.
R2ngers have the exact same business model as Celtic.
Celtic have been mediocre, while R2ngers have been crap.
It gave us an opportunity to dominate.
However, it was always the case that sooner or later they were going to get their act together.
Get an ambitious owner who understands what’s required…
“There was a classic Billy Connolly joke about the cameraman and the sound-man who were filming in the Serengeti and they were catching footage of a pride of lions under a tree.
At one point the leader of the pride stood up, took notice of the camera crew and started to pad towards them.
As the lion started to run a bit fast the cameraman dropped him camera and started running while the sound-man bent down and took a pair of trainers out of his rucksack and started to put them on.
“You bloody fool” shouted the cameraman, “You’ll never outrun them in those”.
“No” said the sound-man “but I’ll outrun you”.
Hail Hail
Chairbhoy on 22nd July 2025 2:17 pm
I applied and continue to apply that same simple approach to games involving both entities.
A couple of points:-
1. I agree , of course, that the Americans are in this for a return on their investment.
Even the thickest of their support ( beautifully satirised here – https://youtu.be/H8x_59EjZOs ) must realise that is the motivation and
2. I also agree that to maximise their return the investors probably need to promote and market to the reasonable element of their support and marginalise the nutter element – an approach they should have adopted in 2012 on the creation of V2, if not sooner.
Unfortunately for them , they have failed to do so and , if anything, pandered to the extreme element so much that there may little appetite among their support to even think about change , let alone a willingness to effect it, especially given the increase in right wing sentiment and support generally over the last few years.
If I am correct about points 1 and 2 then the owners are on a collision course with the intransigence of the hardcore support, with failure the inevitable outcome.
Fingers crossed.
KEVJUNGLE 2:45pm
About a dozen fly by night posters posted precisely the same comment on CQN during the months when you were missing from the blog.
Maybe you can sue them for blatant plagiarism.
Oh wait. Can people sue themselves?
TLWIO @ 3:05 PM,
Well, again, some very good points.
They may well have underestimated their “fanbases” ability for hate and self destruction.
So, we could cross our fingers
OR
We could actually realise we are currently way ahead of them and by building on our current platform and get even better they won’t catch us.
What’s the worst that can happen!?
They fail and we’ve become a top twenty UCL side for no reason, having spent half our savings to get there:))
Hail Hail
Hoping for a Hun victory in Europe?
No nay never.