Martin O'Neill believes Celtic should "aspire" to win the Champions League ahead of their play-off round qualifier against Austrian champions LASK. The 74-year-old hailed the Lisbon Lions - who delivered the club's greatest ever achievement when they lifted the European Cup in 1967 - for "setting the bar" and wants his side to replicate their success despite the financial challenges of modern football. The Celtic manager also expressed his "disappointment" over losing influential midfielder Arne Engels to West Ham United just days before Wednesday's crucial £40m showdown.
After being knocked out of Europe's premier competition at this stage by Kazakh side Kairat Almaty last year, the champions of Scotland return with fresh faces and a point to prove. When the Estadio Metropolitano stages the 2027 final in Madrid next June, 60 years will have passed since legendary captain Billy McNeil got his hands on the trophy - the iconic image of which is cast in bronze outside Celtic Park. Football has changed in the intervening six decades with Scottish sides no longer able to compete with the financial might of elite clubs in England, Spain, Germany, France or Italy.
However, O'Neill - who won the European Cup twice as a player with Nottingham Forest - has set his players the improbable task of emulating the club's most famous heroes: "I've said all along, I think that the bar was set down here way back in 1967," he said at his pre-match news conference. "From then on, I believe that Celtic should be aspiring to that. We may never, ever, ever get there and obviously with the way that the financial market has moved in football, it's getting more and more difficult for maybe a team from Scotland.
"But that aside, you should still be aspiring to it and that's what we want to try and do. We may never get there but this is the bar that's been set down, and the football club have won the European Cup or the Champions League, whatever it's called. "Really, that's what we should be trying to do, and we'll make an all-out effort to try and make it." While prestige and platform may motivate players and managers, money keeps boardrooms happy.
Celtic banked more than £40m from their last participation in the Champions League in 2024/25, where they were beaten by Bayern Munich in the first knockout round. If O'Neill's side are able to successfully navigate their play-off with LASK this year, they will receive around £16m in automatic prize money - even if they lose all eight league phase matches. Thereafter, every draw in the competition is worth £600k and every win is worth £1.8m.
There are also financial rewards for every place in the final league phase table as well as for every round of the knockout stages. In addition, according to Football Meets Data, Celtic are due to receive between £14.4m and £16.6m from Uefa's complicated 'value pillar' financial distribution model - which ranks participating clubs based on coefficient points and TV market ratings. Therefore, the final figure could change depending on which teams progress to the league phase.
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