The Celtic financial blow which is good news for Rangers and possibly the rest of Scottish football

Celtic's exit from the Champions League qualifiers was viewed one of two ways within Scottish football: discontent or delight.

Callum McGregor fumes as Celtic conceded. Picture: SNS

The vast majority of the discontent was from Parkhead, the loss a disaster after the side were in a commanding position to reach the play-off stage having drawn 1-1 in Romania and taken the lead twice on the night.

When Ryan Christie fired Celtic 3-2 in front - 4-3 on aggregate - there were less than 15 minutes of regulation time left.

Callum McGregor fumes as Celtic conceded. Picture: SNS

In terms of delight, that arrived from Rangers fans and other Scottish football supporters who were revelling in schadenfreude - seeing the dominant team in the country come unstuck.

However, analysing the bigger picture, Celtic's failure can be looked at two ways.

First, there is the co-efficient. When Kilmarnock embarrassingly exited the Europa League to Connah's Quay Nomads it meant there was not going to be a positive contribution from the Rugby Park side.

Up until last year Celtic have largely been carrying Scottish football on its shoulders in terms of the coefficient.

For clubs to not have to embark on arduous qualifying campaigns when they get into Europe it relies on all Scottish teams going as far as possible.

Simply put, the higher the coefficient, the better ranked Scotland will become, the more teams that could reach the continental stage and the less qualifying games they would have to play.

Dropping into the Europa League isn't going to be as beneficial for the country, both in terms of the aforementioned coefficient and Scottish football's standing in the game. We should want as many of our teams playing at the highest level as possible.

Yet, there is the other side of the coin where Celtic's failure to reach the lucrative groups stages of the Champions League costs them financially.

One of the takes from Tuesday night's loss was that dropping into Europe's secondary competition all but wipes out the money received from the Kieran Tierney sale, ie the £25million that may have been available to spend will be eaten into significantly by the difference in finances between the Europa League group stages - providing they defeat AIK or Sheriff Tiraspol - and the Champions League group stages.

So what is the difference?

Qualifying for the Champions League group stages is worth €15million alone. In addition, each win brings in €2.7million and a draw €900,000. Clubs are awarded €2.92million for getting into the Europa League group stages with each win worth €570,000 and a draw €190,000.

There is an argument that Celtic not receiving the riches the Champions League offers levels the playing field ever so slightly.

It was a point made by Rangers chairman Dave King who claimed that the Ibrox side winning one league title would see their rivals' finances "fold like a pack of cards" if they were denied one season of Champions League football.

However, we can take those claims as wrong since the Scottish champions missed the group stages of Europe's elite competition last season. Plus, as seen with Kieran Tierney, the club have an abundance of assets within their team who could be sold for big money.

Yet, missing out for two years in a row prevents Celtic from reaching a stratospheric level which is way out of reach of any of their competition but it does hinder Scotland's progress on the European stage in terms of the coefficient.

It depends in which camp you sit.