The key thing on the line other than cold, hard cash, is cold, hard coefficient points.
These are what determines where your country sits in the rankings, and ultimately decides how many European spots you’re going to get and where you’re getting them.
Right now, Scotland is teetering on the brink. Having already lost an automatic Champions League spot for the Scottish Premiership winners, they face not climbing into the top 15 countries.
If that happens, the summer of discontent and endless qualifiers starts in 2027.
Scotland are currently chasing Austria in 15th place, and Gavin Noon of Scotland’s Coefficient, external explains how crucial Champions League qualification really is.
“Austria are 2.8 coefficient points ahead of us, so if you translate that into how many matches you would need to win in the league phase to make that gap up – it’s 0.4 points for a win – so that’s equal to seven wins, but that’s seven wins more than Austria to cut that gap,” he explains.
“However, there’s big bonus points on offer just for qualifying for the Champions League, so if Rangers and Celtic both win their second legs on Tuesday and Wednesday night, and reach the league phase, that 2.8 gap will be eliminated, completely gone.
“That’s because it’s 1.2 bonus points to Scotland’s coefficient for reaching the Champions League phase, and winning on the night is 0.2 points, so it would mean they would both add 1.4 points to Scotland’s coefficient, double that, that’s 2.8, that eliminates the gap.”
But what about the theory that they’d be better in the lesser competition because there’s more chance of winning games?
Similarly to the financial side of things, that argument falls down given the huge benefits just by reaching the competition.
Also, teams across the competitions earn points depending where they finish in their respective league phases, with the lowest-ranked Champions League team earning the same amount of points as the team in the Europa League who finishes first.
“An example is if a team reaches the Champions League, and they have one draw and seven losses, that would be worth more to Scotland’s coefficient than reaching the Europa League, having three wins and a draw, and finishing 24th,” says Noon.
“So reaching the knockout phase, at that moment in time they would have still added more points, purely by getting into the Champions League and having seven losses.”
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