Four Celtic stars are in the 27 man Scotland squad for the upcoming ties against Serbia, Slovakia and Israel this week.
With Celtic’s hectic domestic and European schedule, many fans will be concerned for the wellbeing of the first team stars representing their countries after losing Odsonne Edouard, Nir Bitton and Hatem Elhamed for two weeks after contracting COVID, and Ryan Christie who had to self isolate after appearing for international duty, these current UEFA Nations League fixtures are seen by many Celtic fans as a burden, especially in the season where 10-in-a-row is at stake.
But for all its pitfalls, international call ups do benefit clubs financially. Back in April this year, the UEFA Executive Committee released monies due to clubs who’s players participated in the UEFA team competitions early to help clubs facing financial difficulties during the COVID pandemic.
The details of the payments are as follows from the UEFA website but here is an excerpt below:
- “€50m will go to clubs having released players for the 39 national teams not involved in the European Qualifiers play-offs.
- €17.7m will go to clubs having released players for the 16 national teams taking part in the European Qualifiers play-offs (not including payments for the play-off matches, which will be paid on completion of the play-offs).
- The balance of €2.7m – related to players released for the play-offs – will be distributed upon completion of these play-off matches in the autumn.
For UEFA EURO 2020, a minimum of €200 million is available for distribution to clubs as agreed in the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between UEFA and the ECA, which was renewed in 2019.
Based on the payment distribution mechanism approved by the UEFA Executive Committee, €70m will be distributed among those clubs which released players for the European Qualifiers and the UEFA Nations League, and the remaining €130m will be distributed among those clubs releasing players for UEFA EURO 2020.”
It’s also worth noting that Celtic received a payment of £1m from FIFA for stars Dedryck Boyata, Mikael Lustig, Tom Rogic and Cristian Gamboa who all represented their countries taking part in the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
So whatever your opinion on the club releasing players to play for Scotland, there is a clear financial benefit for Celtic releasing their stars for international duty, and at a time where fans are still forbidden to attend matches due to the current pandemic, any extra income received at this time is welcome.