Dundalk will be guaranteed a total of €4 million in European prize money and solidarity payments if they can beat KI of the Faroe Islands on Thursday evening. Even losing at this stage would leave them with a cheque for €1.38 million, comfortably more than 10 times what they got for actually winning the league last year.
So a win in this one game is worth a minimum of €2.62 million to the club after which they would be on €190,000 for every point they can manage in the group stage. Much will depend on the luck they get in the draw with the likes of Arsenal, Napoli and Benfica plus a long list of other qualifiers among those going into the pots on Friday.
Gate receipts are clearly going to be severely hit if not completely wiped out by coronavirus related restrictions and that, in turn, will undermine the opportunity to generate additional revenues from commercial sources.
The club’s position, though, underlines the fact that with the Champions League group stages almost impossible to reach for Irish sides, even in a year when the single leg ties made the outcomes that little bit less predictable, the section reserved for defeated national title winners in the Europa League has become the key route to substantial prize money for Irish sides.
The ‘champions path’ as it is known, pits Irish clubs against sides from similar sized or sometimes, as in KI, smaller leagues with a combination of a little luck in the draw and a couple of good performances enough to get sides to the group stages.
"That's why it's so important," said Stephen Bradley on Sunday of the separate section that his Shamrock Rovers is aiming to participate in next season. "The draws we've had, AIK, Brann, AC Milan are a world away from some of the draws the champions get, in the champions route. That's 100 per cent in our thinking."
That importance will be greater than ever in next summer’s qualifying rounds.
Uefa are shaking up their competitions and adding a third, the Conference League, into which the three Irish clubs that currently qualify directly for the Europa League will be diverted.
The Irish title holders, though, will continue to start off in the preliminary rounds of the Champions League and depending on how they fare, could potentially play in all three competitions over the space of a few short weeks.
The changes will mean a minimum of 34 rather than 26 leagues being represented across the group stages of the three competitions with the rewards, even in the least of them, huge by Irish standards. But clubs here are essentially being compensated for leaving the European game’s main stages to more marketable names and setting out as champions is set to matter more than ever before.
