‘Complete disaster’ – Expert: Celtic and Rangers face ‘big problem’ after new blows

Scotland’s two biggest clubs have been dealt a stark financial warning, with a leading football finance expert cautioning that the fallout from their simultaneous European exits will extend well beyond this season’s lost prize money and gate receipts.

The warning comes on the back of a genuinely torrid few days for both halves of the Old Firm. Celtic suffered a stunning collapse in their Champions League play-off, having led their tie 4-0 at one stage before conceding five goals and going out on the away leg — a scoreline so dramatic it’s already being treated as one of the more remarkable European capitulations in the club’s history. Less than 48 hours later, Rangers suffered their own European humiliation, losing to Czech side Jablonec in Conference League qualifying and confirming that both of Scotland’s traditional powerhouses would be absent from continental competition entirely for the 2026-27

Stefan Borson, the former financial adviser to Manchester City who now works as an independent football finance analyst, didn’t mince his words when speaking to Football Insider about the scale of the problem facing both clubs. Discussing Celtic’s collapse specifically, he said nobody at the club could reasonably argue it wasn’t “a complete disaster really when you’re 4-0 up,” and warned that the financial consequences this season would be severe. He was blunt in his overall assessment, saying there’s little way to describe it beyond the fact that the club stands to lose a significant amount of money.

Borson did offer one small note of reassurance regarding Celtic Park’s box office reliability, pointing out that the stadium will still likely sell out for Europa League fixtures given the strength of the club’s fanbase — but even with that caveat, his headline conclusion remained stark: the overall picture, in his words, is bad.

The immediate financial damage is straightforward to understand: European group-stage football brings with it broadcast revenue, prize money for progression, and additional high-demand fixtures that boost matchday income significantly compared to a diet of exclusively domestic football. Both Celtic and Rangers, having been eliminated in qualifying rounds rather than reaching the group stages of their respective competitions, will miss out on that revenue stream entirely for the season.

But Borson’s warning extends further than just the clubs’ individual finances. There’s a broader, structural concern tied to Scotland’s European coefficient — the ranking system UEFA uses to determine how many places, and at what qualifying stage, a country’s clubs are entered into European competitions each season. Deep, successful European runs by Celtic and Rangers in particular have historically been the primary driver of Scotland’s coefficient standing, given their status as the country’s two biggest and most regularly participating clubs in continental competition. A season in which both are eliminated at the qualifying stage, without banking any of the coefficient points that come from progressing further, risks weakening Scotland’s positioning relative to other European footballing nations — with knock-on consequences for how many Scottish clubs qualify for lucrative European competition in future seasons, and at what qualifying round they enter.

The damage isn’t confined to Celtic and Rangers alone. Reflecting on the broader picture, a separate assessment described the situation as a disaster for Scottish football “in every way,” noting that with both Old Firm clubs now needing to navigate three separate qualifying rounds to have any chance of returning to Europe next season, the pain is compounded rather than a one-off setback. That same assessment pointed to a real sense of frustration given the promising European form shown elsewhere in Scottish football this season, with Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen, and Dundee United all having generated genuine excitement in their own continental campaigns — excitement now overshadowed by the scale of the Old Firm’s collective collapse.

There’s also a direct financial cost being felt further down the football pyramid. European solidarity payments — money distributed from UEFA’s competition revenues down through domestic leagues to benefit clubs beyond just those directly competing in Europe — are expected to fall as a direct consequence of Scotland’s clubs underperforming in continental competition this season, with estimates suggesting every club in the Scottish game could lose out on somewhere in the region of £600,000 in solidarity cash as a result. For smaller clubs operating on considerably tighter budgets than Celtic or Rangers, a loss of that scale is far from trivial, illustrating how the Old Firm’s European struggles ripple outward to affect the health of Scottish football more broadly, not just the two clubs directly involved.

This isn’t the first time in recent memory that both Glasgow giants have suffered simultaneous European heartbreak. A similar scenario played out during the previous campaign, when Rangers were beaten 9-1 on aggregate by Club Brugge in a play-off round, while Celtic were eliminated on penalties by Kazakh champions Kairat Almaty after both legs of their tie finished goalless. That earlier double exit prompted very similar language from football finance commentators at the time, with the situation described then, too, as a serious blow to Scottish football’s European standing and finances.

The repetition of the pattern — both Old Firm clubs suffering damaging European exits in consecutive seasons — adds an extra layer of concern to the current situation. A single bad European campaign can be written off as an unfortunate one-off; two in a row starts to look more like a genuine structural vulnerability, whether that’s attributed to squad quality, managerial instability at both clubs in recent seasons, tactical unpreparedness for the specific demands of qualifying-round opposition, or some combination of all

Amid the otherwise uniformly bleak assessment, there has been at least one attempt to identify a potential upside. The suggestion has been floated that, freed from the burden of continental fixtures and the associated squad rotation demands, both Celtic and Rangers could field stronger, more consistent lineups domestically throughout the season — potentially intensifying the level of competition in the Scottish Premiership and making the league itself a more compelling spectacle for supporters and broadcasters alike, even as the clubs themselves suffer financially from their absence in Europe.

Whether that silver lining offers genuine consolation is debatable. A more competitive Premiership might appeal to neutral observers and improve the division’s overall standing, but it does little to offset the direct financial losses both clubs are absorbing this season, nor does it address the broader coefficient concerns affecting Scottish football’s European standing for seasons

For Rangers specifically, the financial blow compounds an already difficult period that includes a shaky start to the domestic season, mounting scrutiny of manager Derek McInnes following his side’s underwhelming record, and significant investment already committed in the transfer market to address a squad in the midst of major turnover. Absorbing a substantial loss of European revenue at the same time the club is spending heavily to reinforce the squad — including a reported £9 million deal for striker Kevin Kelsy and the completed signing of winger Kim Min-su — creates a genuinely challenging financial balancing act for the club’s ownership to manage.

For Celtic, the picture is similarly uncomfortable, with reports suggesting the club may now be forced to reconsider or scale back further transfer activity in light of the financial hit — a scenario described elsewhere as Celtic potentially being set to “pull the plug” on additional late-window signings as a direct consequence of missing out on Champions League football and the substantial revenue that competition provides compared to the Europa League football the club will instead be playing this season.

Both clubs now face a season of recalibrated financial expectations, a weakened contribution to Scotland’s European coefficient, and — at least according to Borson’s blunt assessment — a genuinely difficult set of consequences to navigate that extend well beyond the immediate embarrassment of their respective European exits. Whether either club can turn a difficult financial and reputational moment into a catalyst for genuine improvement, either through smarter domestic focus or a more considered approach to future European campaigns, remains to be seen as the season progresses.