THE Champions League will be a duller place without Celtic to help illuminate it.

That was the view of former Manchester United and England defender Rio Ferdinand, who reckons the experience of playing at Parkhead will be sorely missed by the continent's finest players.

As a result of their 2-1 defeat to NK Maribor over two legs, Ronny Deila's side will have to content with plying their trade in the Europa League against FC Astra, Dinamo Zagreb and Salzburg, while their Slovenian conquerors play Chelsea, Schalke, and Sporting Lisbon in Europe's elite competition.

It brings to an end a two-year run in the Champions League group stage where Celtic Park has hosted some of the best opposition on the continent.

Having played at Parkhead in Europe for Manchester United, Ferdinand knows only too well how captivating an arena it can be on European nights, and how tough a fight Celtic can put up.

And speaking after taking part in the MAESTRIO match at Celtic Park, the QPR centre-half is sure the Champions League will miss the presence of the Premiership champions.

He said: "I think for other teams Celtic will be a big miss, especially from the sense of occasion they bring.

"In the Champions League with teams like Barcelona, I speak to Gerard Pique and others and they say 'The atmosphere against Celtic away is just unbelievable'.

"Some of them just don't know about it. No disrespect to Scottish football but sometimes people in other countries don't know the history of Celtic.

"But when they come here they leave aware of what is going on and the importance of the club."

While it wasn't quite a packed Parkhead yesterday, more than 20,000 fans turned out to see Ferdinand's All-Stars go down 3-2 to Paul McStay's Maestros.

A wealth of stars turned out to play in the event - which was raising money for Unicef and War Child - including Paul Scholes, Lubo Moravcik and Frank McAvennie.