THE full cost of Celtic's failure to reach the Champions League has been revealed ...

and could see the Hoops bring in £18million less from European football this season.

As the group stage prepares to kick off across Europe tonight - with the Hoops' play-off conquerors, Maribor, set to play Sporting Lisbon in Group G tomorrow - Uefa have released details of the money up for grabs in both the Champions League and the Europa League.

And the contrast will be a real blow to Celtic's solar plexus. Last season - when Uefa payments, gate receipts and bonuses from sponsors were calculated - the Parkhead club banked more than £22m for battling through two qualifying rounds and a play-off to book their spot in the group stage, where they won only one game, against Ajax.

The parachute down to the Europa League this season will be worth, at worst, less than a quarter of that, at just £4m.

At best, it will be below half - but that's only if they are good enough to go all the way to the final in Warsaw in May and collect the trophy. There is a total of £165m in the Europa League pot, after organisational and administrative costs have been deducted.

Compare that to the £1.07billion sloshing around in the Champions League and Super Cup.

Celtic have already earned £1,669,500 for reaching the Champions League play-offs, where they went out 2-1 on aggregate to Maribor.

For participating in the six group stage matches of the Europa League, against Red Bull Salzburg, Astra and Dinamo Zagreb, they will collect £1,030,000.

Each win they record will be worth a further £159,000, while every draw will bring in £79,500.

Progressing to the knockout stage in February will be worth a further £159,000.

Reaching the Round of 16 will bring a bonus of £278,250, with £357,750 for the quarter-finalists and £795,000 for the four semi-finalists.

The winners will collect £3,975,000 with the runner-up pocketing £1,987,500.

On top of this, each club participating in the Europa League receives a share of the Market Pool, which is based on TV contracts from all the countries.

Half of the £66,382,500 from this pool is split according to how many teams from each association take part.

On this occasion, 26 countries are represented, so the share Celtic can expect is £1,276,586.

The other half of the Market Pool is distributed according to how far you progress in the competition.

Along with all of this, of course, there is income from gate receipts, though, again, this will be substantially less than Celtic would have made if they had qualified for the Champions League.

The Hoops are marketing their three-game package at £60, and have begun their ticket sale to season-book holders by allocating seats in the bottom tier of their three stands outwith the main stand, an indication of how tough they believe it will be to get anywhere near a capacity crowd.

However, while the financial returns may be significantly lower, dropping to the Europa League should at least afford the opportunity to accumulate some much-needed ranking points to move Celtic up the Uefa co-efficient table.