By Kieran Maguire

8th Jan, 2021 | 7:00pm

Exclusive: Kieran Maguire reveals Rangers-Celtic revenue swing

Rangers are running away with the league title and edging ahead of Celtic in the balance sheets after a £58million annual revenue swing.

That is according to author of The Price of Football and new Football Insider columnist Kieran Maguire, who spoke exclusively to correspondent Adam Williams about the latest development in Rangers and Celtic’s constant battle for financial supremacy.

The scales are beginning to tip in Rangers’ favour, as they announced an 11% increase in revenue over 2020 while Celtic’s fell by 15.8% in the same period.

In terms of their overall turnover, Celtic are still a little ahead of the cross-city rivals — they made £70.2m while Rangers earned £59m.

But the gap is closing and Maguire believes this could be the start of a fiscal powershift if the Light Blues can make one crucial breakthrough…

“It really is dependent on the ability to get into the Champions League group stages,” he told Football Insider.

“If you take a look at Celtic’s income, that’s fallen £30 million in two years because that was the last time they were in the Champions League group stage. Clearly, there has been the impact of Covid as well.

“So the gap has narrowed. If you take a look at their positions in 2018, Celtic were £69m ahead of Rangers and that’s now fallen to £11m — a £58m swing. If Rangers now get into the Champions League group stages, I would expect them to exceed Celtic’s revenue stream.

“If they do that, they are in a stronger position in their ability to recruit players.”

Rangers are 19 points clear in the Scottish Premiership and are into the next round of the Europa League, while Celtic finished bottom of their group.

Football Insider revealed that Rangers would land an £18m+ windfall for qualifying for the knockout stages, while Celtic would receive around £3.7m after being dumped out of the competition at the group stage.

In other news, a close friend of Allan McGregor has revealed the latest on the goalkeeper’s Rangers future.