How much Liverpool can earn from the Europa League as new European reality emerges

For the first time in seven years, Liverpool will take their place in European football’s second tier knockout club competition this week.

Having missed out on the top four and Champions League football last season by virtue of their fifth-placed finish in the Premier League, Liverpool will face a European adventure of a different kind for the 2023/24 season, one that they will hope will end in success but one that they will be aiming lasts just the one campaign.

For Liverpool, Champions League football has become an increasingly important part of their business in recent years. The rise of the club under the stewardship of manager Jurgen Klopp has seen the club catapult itself back among the game’s elite, with a Champions League win in 2019 and final appearances in 2018 and 2022 solidifying their position as one of Europe’s biggest clubs.

But last season’s on-pitch struggles mean that for this season at least they will have to take their place in the Europa League, with the Reds taking on Austrian side LASK at the Raiffeisen Arena tonight. It will mark the beginning of a journey that could deliver significant revenues in the tens of millions for the Reds, but revenues that are dwarfed by what they could have been earning in the Champions League, a competition that has delivered more than £100m per year for the club on several occasions in recent years through prize money, their share of the TV money and matchday revenues.

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UEFA, European football’s governing body, distributes its net annual revenue among the Champions League, Europa League and Conference