When Stewart Robertson claimed a run to the Europa League Final had been more lucrative to the club than reaching the Champions League group stage there were a few raised eyebrows.
UEFA’s second tier competition has always been second best in the financial stakes compared to the biggest prize in club football.
But an extended Europa League run can help rake in some serious cash – as the Ibrox side have just proven.
Speaking prior to the Final in Seville – which saw them just lose lost on a further £3.4million in prize money – Robertson said: “It's been a fantastic boost to the club's finances.
"It's been a fantastic addition to what we budgeted for so that allows us to look at strengthening the team in the summer, it allows us to continue with the infrastructure projects we still have to do around the stadium and training ground.
"The run we've had now is probably slightly more than we would have had from qualifying for the Champions League. It's a terrific boost, it allows us to do so many things.”
Rangers played 16 ties in total in their run to the Final which started with their nervy aggregate playoff win against Alashkert of Armenia to reach the group stage.
That came after the blow of losing their Champions League qualifier to Malmo but little did they know then what lay ahead of them – similar to Celtic when they reached the Final in the same city after losing their qualifier against Swiss side Basel.
Rangers banked just short of £3m for reaching the group stage where they were drawn against Lyon, Sparta Prague and Brondby.
A couple of wins and draws saw them progress to the knockout stage and earned almost £1.5m extra which was taken to nearer £2m thanks to the runners-up spot payout.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst took charge from the penultimate group game win over Sparta Prague to get out of the group before steering them through knockout ties against Borussia Dortmund, Red Star Belgrade, Braga and RB Leipzig to further swell the coffers by just over £9m with a co-efficient ranking cheque of £800,000.
Football finance expert @SwissRamble has now put the total in TV revenue money at an estimated £17m.
The add the UEFA prize money of £15m which brings the total to £32m.
But we’re not done there.
Because of course the run to the Final opened up so many other revenue avenues for the Ibrox side including the all-important gate receipts - with eight home sell-out games - other match day income and commercial deals.
The price of a brief for the semi-final against Leipzig was £61 for non-season ticket holders and £50 for season ticket holders with Borussia Dortmund, Red Star and Braga similar.
Hospitality was also completely sold out and it’s estimated they could have raised as much as £10m, if not more.
Estimated total: More than £40m.
