SOCCER:IT TOOK almost a decade-and-a- half of participation in the competition now known as the Champions League before a League of Ireland club made it through a single round. Back then, though, it didn't really matter quite so much; the hope was to get a glamorous draw. During those 14 years the likes of Manchester United, Atletico Madrid and Sporting Lisbon all came and played in front of packed houses.

Now, it doesn’t matter too much who a club ends up playing as long as they make it to the group stages; glamour is just the icing on the cake. Prize money and a share of the television pool is what clubs are after.

So, even before the draw is made for the next round this week in Switzerland, the players and officials at Shamrock Rovers know this evening’s game against FC Copenhagen in Tallaght is right up there with the biggest games in the history of the club.

Fans might well point to the matches that have won or lost the club titles or cups in Ireland, but never has the team gone into a game where victory will mean more than doubling the club’s income for the entire year.

The contrast is illustrated elsewhere by, say, Tommy McConville’s miss against Celtic in 1979 when a goal would have put Dundalk into the quarter-finals of the European Cup. What was at stake was putting a great club out of the competition and making history for Irish football, but Dundalk might easily have made less money in the next round than they did against the Scots. By the time Shelbourne played Deportivo La Coruna in 2004, on the other hand, pride and history were a part of the mix, but the primary concern was the €6 million or so a place in the group stages was reckoned to be worth to the Dubliners.

For Rovers, going out of the Champions League this evening will mean a place in a play-off round of the Europa League, where a win would give them the chance to qualify for that competition’s group stages and a guaranteed €1 million in prize money plus various add-ons.

Eliminate the Danes, though, and the bottom line for the Dubliners will be at least three times that amount: each of the participants in last year’s Champions League play-off received over €2 million, after which the winners went on to the massively lucrative next round while the losers were parachuted into the Europa League group stage and so received that €1 million-plus.

“There’s a huge amount of money at stake,” says Rovers manager Michael O’Neill. “That’s the imbalance. The money on offer to the club through European football as opposed to domestic football is not comparable. Yet you need to be successful in domestic football to have a chance at the European money, so that’s why out focus is never to be taken off domestic side of things.

“Still, the club has everything to gain. We’ve put together fine squad of players and done it within a strict financial plan so success will all be an upside for us.”

O’Neill admits while he and the club’s board are keen to take on the “fantastic challenge” qualification would bring, there would be a “certain nervousness and fear”, of all the various hurdles that would have to be overcome during the coming months.

Supporters dream in these situations enough revenue can be generated to make their club dominant at home and capable of further progress abroad, and certainly Champions League group stage football, which might increase turnover from around the €2.5 million mark to something like six times that figure, would have the potential to do that.

Going out this evening and then missing out on the group stage of the Europa League, on the other hand, would have no major long-term impact, while even the €3 million-plus, that would result from the team successfully navigating its way along one of the middle paths would require some serious decisions to be made about how best to move forward.

“All of these things are what-ifs,” he says. “They’re not things I am banking on. But in any case I don’t think it would lead to us changing the way we would run the club. There are things we would like to do to improve in all areas of the club and we would have to look at them, but I couldn’t see me saying, right, we’re going to double our wage bill now. That’s not going to happen.”