Celtic have won their cup finals, but group stage the ceiling

THE sloppy nature of the second-leg display should not disguise what Celtic achieved in Kazakhstan last night.

Champions League qualification means so much to the SPL champions that Brendan Rodgers (right, above) finds himself in the bizarre position where the most important six games of his season take place before September.

Granted, their impeccable domestic performances last term delivered plenty of joy to fans.

But it’s the money for making the group stages of Europe’s premier competition that helps Celtic function in an era where their league is incapable of generating serious funds through any kind of television deal.

In 2008, the ill-fated Setanta was willing to shell out £31m a season for the rights to Scotland’s top flight.

Local reports claim that the current deal with Sky and BT Sport amounts to £19m per season with highlights and foreign rights on top of that. The bulk of that cash is spread out amongst the top 12 clubs. In that context, Celtic’s cut is small.

Compare that to the £1.71 billion deal that Sky and BT Sport are paying for Premier League coverage. It’s another world.

Therefore, the European dosh is vital. Making the group stages last year was worth £26m to Celtic before ancillary benefits were factored in. It contributed to a revenue increase of 94.7pc for the first six months of their financial year.

In February of this year, they confirmed that their pre-tax profit was £18.6m which was a considerable increase on 12 months earlier where they only qualified for the Europa League group phase. Not making either would be catastrophic.

So these are pressure games and other managers have struggled with them. Rodgers has got the hang of it. Linfield was a handy start to this run, while their struggles with Rosenborg look slightly better in hindsight. The Norwegian champions won away to Ajax last Thursday to move within 90 minutes of the Europa League group stages.

In these pages before, we’ve spoken about the dangers of applying collateral form to football, but the fact that Rosenborg have shown themselves to be decent is of little comfort to a Dundalk squad watching from afar that wanted their crack at Celtic.

Meeting sides midway through their season is the hardest part for Rodgers’ but his men got the job done in Trondheim and handed a first-leg bashing to an Astana side they scraped past in 2016. Emerging powers in oil-rich nations are becoming a growing influence in the ‘champions’ section that allows Celtic a route to the top table even though they would much prefer a scenario which actually gave them a proper offseason. To be adequately prepared, they have to return to the training pitch in June which adds another layer of complications. But what happens now? Barring a shock defeat for Liverpool tonight, Celtic will be in Pot 4 for Friday’s draw. This means they could, for example, end up with a group that includes Real Madrid, PSG