Galatasaray won the Champions League lottery before even taking the field!

Tuesday night's UEFA Champions League play-off second legs opened up a significant revenue stream for Galatasaray. Kazakhstan's Kairat knocked Scottish giants Celtic out of the tournament, bringing another €320,000 into the club's coffers. One of the surprises of the night was Red Star's victory against Cypriot side Pafos, a result that netted Galatasaray another €320,000.

640,000 euros

These two crucial playoff results earned Galatasaray a total of €640,000 in additional revenue. This was due to the lower UEFA coefficients of Kairat and Pafos. This changed the other clubs' positions in the rankings, increasing Galatasaray's share of the prize money.

UEFA's coefficient system for clubs is based on their results in European competitions over the past five years. Every win, draw, and qualifying bonus a club earns is added to this coefficient. The higher the coefficient, the more advantageous the clubs are placed in the draw and the larger their share of UEFA's revenue distribution.

When teams with lower coefficients eliminate stronger opponents, this automatically translates into additional revenue for clubs with higher coefficients (like Galatasaray), as the pool system distributed by UEFA is reorganized based on the clubs' rankings.