Full cost of Liverpool’s failure to qualify for Champions League as Man Utd secure place

Jurgen Klopp’s team will be missing from the Champions League for the first time in seven years after Manchester United confirmed their return to the competition

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp reviews the Aston Villa game

Liverpool are set to miss out on at least £50m in prize money and participation fees because of their fifth place Premier League finish.

And while Jurgen Klopp’s squad is expected to see substantial investment this summer with the aim of competing against next season, the budget will be greatly affected by their failure to qualify for next season’s Champions League.

Their fate was confirmed by Manchester United, who beat Chelsea 4-1 on Thursday evening; with the result securing a top-four spot for Erik ten Hag’s side before Sunday’s final round of fixtures.

Liverpool earned an estimated £159.8m for last season’s second-place finish and that will fall by £6.6m for fifth spot with broadcasting earnings also set to take a hit.

But the real difference will come from UEFA payments. Klopp’s side were knocked out of Champions League at the round of 16 by Real Madrid but still banked a total of €67.7m (£58.9m).

All 32 group stage teams make €15.6m (£13.5m) as a base participation fee, with Liverpool’s ten-year coefficient payment this season worth an additional €27.3m (£23.7m). They made €2.8m (£2.4m) for each of their five group stage wins and a €9.6m (£8.3m) top up for making it into the knockout stages.

Those figures are in stark contrast to the sums available in the Europa League. United, for instance, made €15m (£13m) for reaching the quarter-finals of that competition only to be beaten by Sevilla after throwing away an advantage in the first leg.

A Europa League participation fee is only €3.6m (£3.1), with group stage wins earning €360,000 (£313,000) and progressing into the knockout stages worth an initial €500,000 (£435,000).

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp will lead his team in the Europa League next season

There could also be commercial consequences because many sponsors include performance related add-ons. United lost several million last summer because of clauses in their contracts with kit manufacturer adidas and front of shirt sponsor TeamViewer.

Roberto Firmino, James Milner, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Naby Keita are all leaving the club this summer. The quartet’s salary combined has cost the club about £500,000-per-week.

Liverpool’s primary focus will be on strengthening their midfield but hopes of bringing in Jude Bellingham from Borussia Dortmund have been all but extinguished, with the England star instead tipped for Real Madrid.

They have also been linked with Brighton star Alexis MacAllister, who was part of Argentina’s World Cup winning squad, but champions Manchester City are also interested.

Klopp’s team close out their campaign with a trip to already relegated Southampton on Sunday afternoon. An impressive finish to the campaign, winning seven and drawing three of their past 10, has not been enough to close the gap following their early-season struggles.

READ NEXT.  

Liverpool face nightmare Europa League group as rivals Man Utd book Champions League place with Chelsea win

Liverpool’s place in the Europa League has been confirmed after Manchester United claimed the final Champions League spot and Jurgen Klopp’s side could be dealt a nightmare draw.

United’s 4-1 thrashing of Chelsea has confirmed Erik ten Hag’s side a place in the Champions League, and simultaneously subjected rivals Liverpool to a season in Europe’s second-tier competition.

Liverpool, who end their dismal campaign trophyless, have been tipped to make major changes to their squad in the summer, as they ready themselves for a season of Thursday night football.

And as things stand, the Merseyside club could be dealt a nightmare draw in the Europa League.

How does the Europa League draw work?

The Europa League proper begins with a group stage of 32 teams, divided into eight groups of four. Clubs from the same association cannot be drawn against each other.

The draw to determine which teams go into each group is seeded based on teams’ performance in UEFA competitions.

The teams are first split into four seeding pots and each group will have one team from each pot.

Pot 1 contains the UEFA Conference League winner, while the rest of the teams in each pot are determined by coefficients.

Liverpool’s potential nightmare draw

Liverpool will be on Pot 1, potentially with the likes of Juventus, Roma, Ajax, Villarreal, Leverkusen, Sporting and one of West Ham or Fiorentina, who compete in the Conference League final on June 7.

At present Pot 2 could include PSV, Olympiakos, Real Betis, Marseille, Monaco, Ferencvaros, Qarabag and Solvan Bratislava, though some of those teams are yet to have confirmed their place in the competition.

Pot 3 and 4 are hard to predict at this early juncture.

However, if each domestic league were to end at this point, Liverpool could be in a group alongside the likes of PSV Eindhoven, Freiburg and Maccabi Haifa. Such a draw would include tricky ties against two of the competition’s most highly rated sides, alongside a 6,600-mile round trip to Israel.

With that in mind, Liverpool could alternatively find themselves in a group with Azerbaijan’s Qarabag, Ludogorets Razgrad in Bulgaria, and again Maccabi Haifa.

While each of those games would be winnable for Liverpool, they include nightmare journeys that would inevitably have consequences on their domestic form.