Rangers earn £12.5m more than Celtic from Europe

• Reason to smile: Walter Smith

Rangers earned almost 14 million from their participation in the Champions League, despite finishing bottom of their group behind Sevilla, VfB Stuttgart and Unirea Urziceni.

Celtic, by contrast, picked up just over 1.5 million in prize money from the Europa League where they finished third in their group behind Hapoel Tel-Aviv and Hamburg. The Parkhead club, in fact, earned more from playing in the Champions League qualifiers. By reaching the final play-off round, where they were eliminated by Arsenal, Celtic picked up a Uefa bonus of just over 1.7 million.

The figures do not include gate receipts with clubs keeping all of the revenue for their home matches. Rangers played three games at Ibrox in Europe last season, while Celtic had five fixtures over the two competitions at Parkhead.

Despite Uefa's attempt to increase the profile and commercial value of the Europa League, it remains some distance behind the Champions League in terms of revenue. Even Fulham, who reached the Europa League final last season, earned less than Rangers from their campaign. The London club received just over 8.1 million in Uefa prize money, almost 6 million less than the Scottish champions collected for relative failure in the elite tournament.

It underlines once more how crucial winning the last two SPL titles have been for Rangers as they look to improve their financial position. They can expect to collect a similar amount from the Champions League this season as they await this Thursday's group stage draw. Celtic, by contrast, know that reaching the group stage of the Europa League - they face Utrecht in the second leg of their play-off round tie on Thursday night with a 2-0 advantage to protect - can hardly begin to compensate them for being knocked out of the Champions League in the third qualifying round by Braga earlier this month.

Rangers earned a basic fee of e7.1 million, around 5.8 million, for being one of the 32 clubs in the group stage of the Champions League last season. In terms of performance bonuses, Walter Smith's men did not trouble the Uefa treasurer's office too much as they lost four of their six matches.

With e800,000 for a win and e400,000 for a draw in the group stage, Rangers picked up just e800,000 (around 653,000) for the 1-1 results achieved away to Stuttgart and Unirea.

The most significant sum collected by Rangers, however, was from the share of television market revenue.

Celtic's failure to join them in the group stages of Europe's elite competition meant the Ibrox club raked in all of Scotland's share of the broadcasting bonanza which was a cool E9.224 million, just over 7.5 million.Rangers will again be the sole recipients of television cash this

RANGERS

euro 7.1m for reaching group stage of Champions League

euro 0.8m performance bonus

euro 9.2m TV market share

TOTAL euro 17.1m

CELTIC

euro 2.1 million for reaching Champions League play-offs

euro 0.9m for reaching group stage of Europa League

euro 0.3m performance bonus

euro 0.67m TV market share

TOTAL euro 3.9m