Coruna tie could bring in half a million

Although it is hard to put a precise figure on it at this stage, Shelbourne could make up to 500,000 from their encounter with Deportivo La Coruna in the third qualifying round of the Champions League.

Tickets for Wednesday's game at Lansdowne Road go on sale this morning priced 20 for adults and 10 for children and if the match attracts between 20,000 and 25,000, as the club hopes, then the gross revenue generated would be in the region of 400,000.

Spanish television would be expected to pay between €100,000 and 150,000 for the rights to the Dublin game.

The contest is slightly overshadowed in terms of the national audience there by the fact that Real Madrid will also be involved in this qualifying round - they play Wisla Krakow - but a deal would be expected over the next day or so.

In the event that Shelbourne somehow upset last year's semi-finalists they would go forward to the group stages, where, as Finbarr Flood puts it, "the money really begins to flow." In fact, the Dubliners could expect to take in excess of 5 million just for participating at that stage of the competition, with substantial bonuses for any point picked up.

If, as seems more likely, the club is eliminated, it will receive the consolation prize of a place in the first round of the UEFA Cup, which is, in effect, another final eliminator before that competition's first ever group stages.

Shelbourne's fortunes there would depend to a large extent on how kind the draw was to them. The first round involves 80 clubs from across Europe, with 32 progressing from this month's second qualifying round, three qualifying from the Intertoto Cup, 16 coming in from the Champions League and a further 29 coming directly in as a result of qualifying for the event from highly ranked countries.

Lazio, Newcastle and Feyenoord are among this latter group and would bring another handsome television payday but there will be some much less famous names in the hat.

Even now, however, Shelbourne, are one of only two teams to reach this stage of the Champions League after entering at the first-qualifying-round level and so, for all their achievements, they would have to be regarded by many others as an attractive draw.

If they did win through that round the Dubliners would go into a group of five clubs in which each would face two of its rivals at home and the other two away.

By the end of their four group matches, Shelbourne would be expected to have made more than 2 million from their involvement this season in European competition.