Champions League

The Rangers name is now back in the Champions League after a 12-year absence, joining Glasgow rival Celtic in the group stage.

Each team gets a basic fee of 15.6 million euros ($15.5 million), plus 2.8 million euros ($2.78 million) per win and 930,000 euros ($924,000) for each draw in the group stage. The Champions League is even more concentrated in western Europe – and not just because of the Russia ban. The other 24 teams are seeded according to UEFA ranking based on European results in the past five seasons. The extra 930,000 euros ($924,000) left over from each drawn game is pooled and shared among teams who won games. The 32 teams from 15 different countries go into groups of four playing home-and-away round-robin games. The top two in each group advance to the knockout stage next year. A fund of 600 million euros ($596 million) gets divided between clubs according to their place in a league table based on historical European titles and results in the past 10 years. There is no such upstart this season, though some in Scotland would argue Rangers should count as a first-timer. Madrid has advanced every time. Maybe we will be lucky,” Shakhtar captain Taras Stepanenko said this week. Teams from the same country cannot be in the same group. The Rangers name is now back in the Champions League after a 12-year absence, joining Glasgow rival Celtic in the group stage.