A pot three UEFA Champions League spot isn’t completely out of the question for Celtic

Add as preferred source on Google

Celtic’s securing of the Premiership title means that we will play in the group stage of the UEFA Champions League next season.

We don’t have to play a single qualifier. Just like this season, our first European fixture will be in the group stage of European football’s premier club competition.

We are in a pretty select group of clubs who have already secured their spot in next season’s Champions League proper.

Only seven other clubs join us at present: Manchester City, Arsenal, Barcelona, Napoli, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and Red Star Belgrade.

This season Celtic were ranked as the 30th of the 32 group stage teams in terms of coefficient. Only Viktoria Plzeň and Maccabi Haifa were ranked lower than us. (UEFA)

While our coefficient will actually be lower next season (31.000 compared to 33.000 this term) we could find ourselves further up the list.

In fact, you shouldn’t totally rule out the possibility of a place in pot three for us.

A glance around Europe suggests that we may seem some pretty surprise entries in to the group stage next season.

In England, Newcastle United are favourites for a top four spot.

In Germany, one or both of Union Berlin/Freiburg will be involved.

Lens currently occupy one of France’s two automatic Champions League places.

Dnipro-1 and Sturm Graz are still fighting for the Ukrainian and Austrian titles respectively.

All of the above teams have a lower coefficient than Celtic. When you add in a few unlikely qualifiers from the playoff rounds, maybe pot three isn’t so unrealistic after all.

Having said that, the overall likelihood is that we’ll end up back in pot four. But it’s better to be there than not, eh?

Next season will hopefully be the year we start making a name for ourselves in Europe again, and earn a higher seeding for the Champions League’s new format from 2024.

The group stage draw is on August 31st. Only 113 days to go.

In other news, Celtic’s penultimate league game of the season will be available on PPV