Celtic and Scotland as a whole have had a whole new European issue to contend with lately.
Due to poor performances in Europe over the last few years, Scotland’s UEFA coefficient has taken a bit of a battering.
The UEFA coefficient is a number that reflects each country’s performance in European competitions, and a five-year average determines how a club is able to enter UEFA tournaments.
For instance, title winners from countries inside UEFA’s top 10 do not have to go through qualifiers to get into the Champions League and instead have direct entry.
Teams earn coefficient points for their country by winning matches and progressing through different stages of competitions.
Underperformance can prove costly as your country is at risk of sliding down the rankings and losing benefits gained from having a higher ranking.
Celtic have been told about the ‘great pity’ about their Champions League qualification next season.
How Rangers’ loss affects Celtic and Scottish football
Rangers losing to Athletic Club in the Europa League quarter-finals means there are no longer any Scottish clubs competing in Europe this season.
This means Scotland now lie in 14th place in the UEFA coefficient table. This entitles Scotland to two Champions League places, one Europa League place and two Europa Conference League places.
All of the eligible teams will have to go through qualifying in order to enter the main stage of the competitions.
Celtic will need to negotiate a play-off round in order to get into the Champions League, and the league’s runners up will need to go through three rounds to qualify for the competition.
This is mostly a result of the disastrous 2022/23 campaign, where all Scottish clubs performed poorly and dragged the UEFA coefficient’s five-year average down.
Celtic and Rangers’ better performances in Europe this season will help secure Scotland’s place in UEFA’s top 15.
This is critical as if Scotland were to finish a season in 16th place on the coefficient, they’d lose even more entries into Europe – as Champions League spots would drop from two to one.
However, for Scotland to even begin to threaten the top 10 again, it would require teams other than Celtic and Rangers to do their bit in Europe.
More than 75% of Scotland’s UEFA ranking points have come from the Old Firm sides this season, which has largely been the case recently.
Celtic will be hoping Kieran Tierney can replicate his performances for Arsenal in the competition for them next season.
What Celtic’s Champions League qualification next season looks like currently
With Celtic set to win the league for the 13th time in 14 years this season, they’ll be going into the Champions League via a qualification play-off.
The Bhoys will join nine other teams in the play-off, with five teams being seeded. As it stands, Celtic are likely to be one of those seeded teams.
Even being seeded doesn’t guarantee an easy tie though, so the Bhoys will need to prioritise the fixture to ensure their European campaign doesn’t end before it’s even begun.
The draw for the play-offs takes place on August 4th, with the games taking place over two legs. Those two legs will be played on either August 19th or 20th, and August 26th or 27th.
Hopefully a solid pre-season and transfer window can stand them in good stead to get through the play-off and work towards rebuilding the Scottish UEFA coefficient even further.
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