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With the World Cup set to kick off in a few days and four Celtic players involved, the club is set to receive a windfall, of sorts, for releasing their men for the tournament.

Josip Juranovic (Croatia), Daizen Maeda (Japan), Aaron Mooy (Australia) and Cameron Carter-Vickers (USA) are the four Celts afforded the chance to strut their stuff on the world stage for the next few weeks.

As part of FIFA's Club Benefits Programme, Celtic will be entitled to payment for the duration of their players' involvement in Qatar.

But what is the FIFA Club Benefits Programme, what does it mean for Celtic this winter and how much is the club likely to get?

Here, we break down the details we know and highlight some of the ones we don't...

FIFA Club Benefits Programme

FIFA has set aside around $209m (£190m) for club payments for this edition of the World Cup. Celtic have to apply digitally via the FIFA Professional Football Landscape to notify the authorities they wish to receive the cash.

The governing body's model takes into consideration the number of players from the club who are selected for the World Cup as well as the number of days each player is at the tournament. This is counted until the day after his team gets eliminated.

A share of the fee is passed on to clubs with which the player in question was registered during the two years beforehand. A player does not actually need to see any game-time in the tournament for a club to qualify for a payment.

This payment amounts to $10,000 (approx. £8,497) per player per day.

The claimable time starts from the official 'preparation period', which is reportedly considered to be the date the team meets up to fly out to Qatar.

Clubs had to officially release any players included in squad lists by November 14 at the latest but the 32 teams can technically arrive in Qatar anytime up to a minimum of five days prior to the start of their opening match.

The USA team arrived a few days ago but their European-based players only flew out after the weekend's games. The Australian squad has arrived already while Croatia and Japan are both slated to touch down on November 18.

Because those latter two teams don't kick off until November 23 - Croatia against Morocco and Japan against Germany - they each have friendly matches scheduled before they arrive in Qatar. Japan play Canada in Dubai (Thursday November 17) while Croatia take on Saudi Arabia in Riyadh a day earlier.

Is there a maximum amount Celtic can get?

FIFA does set maximum limits for player payments per round reached. These are:

Celtic Way:

In GBP, those totals are:
Group stage: £153,542
Round of 16:£187,582
Quarter-finals: £238,740
Semi-finals: £272,846
Final: £315,479

How does FIFA calculate payments?

FIFA divides their entitlement scheme into three 'blocks' to account for different international transfer windows. For the 2018 edition, these were:

Celtic Way:

The same club can be entitled to more than one 'block'. For instance, if the player has been at the same club throughout all of the two years they then receive all three thirds of the total (i.e. the full amount).

The Rudiger example

FIFA uses the case of Antonio Rudiger to illustrate the notion of sharing the total fee. Rudiger competed for Germany at the 2018 World Cup as a Chelsea player but had only joined the Blues in July 2017 having represented Roma before that. 

Chelsea, as a result, did not receive the whole fee for his participation. Because Rudiger had played for Roma within the specified block one dates, the Serie A side received a third of his total fee with the other two-thirds going to Stamford Bridge.

Celtic Way:

So what does this mean for Celtic?

Without releasing the exact dates for each block yet, FIFA has stipulated it will run this year's payments "just like 2018" so the claimable periods will likely be between December 2020 and November 2021 (block one), between December 2021 and October 2022 (block two) and between November and December 2022 (block three).

Celtic have already released Juranovic (Croatia), Maeda (Japan), Mooy (Australia) and Carter-Vickers (USA) to their respective squads for the tournament.

All of the World Cup-bound Celts are relatively new arrivals meaning the club likely won't be entitled to the full block of payments but rather a portion of it (likely two-thirds) with cash going to Tottenham Hotspur, Legia Warsaw, Yokohama F Marinos and Shanghai Port for Carter-Vickers, Juranovic, Maeda and Mooy respectively.

As a quick aside: it's not altogether clear what role a loan spell plays in these calculations but that FIFA considers such a move to be an "application for the registration of a professional player on a loan basis" suggests it will count in Celtic's favour if applicable.

With other club payments factored into proceedings it's likely the Hoops would pocket between £375,000 and £410,000 for their current crop depending on FIFA's calculation of arrival dates.

Former Celtic players in Qatar

Ex-Celts at the 2022 World Cup include Virgil van Dijk (Netherlands), Jeremie Frimpong (Netherlands), Timothy Weah (USA), Jackson Irvine (Australia) and Olivier Ntcham (Cameroon). Only Frimpong and Ntcham can make Celtic any additional money.

Taking that into account it seems the club would qualify for one-third each of Frimpong and Ntcham's group-stage participation, netting them approximately £45,000 for the former and £42,500 for the latter (depending on how they factor in his Marseille loan spell).

Of course, this estimated combined total of £460,000 to £500,000 or so is all based on group-stage participation only.

If any of the six go further in the tournament then Celtic will be entitled to even more, within the round-by-round maximums.

How much did Celtic earn last time?

During the last edition, in Russia, Celtic earned $1,186,062 (£929,480). Manchester City topped the lot with $5,003,440 (£3,924,348).

Four Parkhead players were at the 2018 World Cup: Dedryck Boyata (Belgium), Cristian Gamboa (Costa Rica), Mikael Lustig (Sweden) and Tom Rogic (Australia).

Boyata went furthest with Belgium eventually beating England in the third-place play-off. Lustig made the quarter-finals with Sweden while both Gamboa and Rogic were eliminated at the group stage.

Three other ex-Celts - John Guidetti (Sweden), Jackson Irvine (Australia) and Ki Sung-Yueng (South Korea) - were there but none qualified for payment due to their departure dates.

This piece is an extract from the latest Celtic Digest newsletter, which is emailed out every weekday evening with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from The Celtic Way team. 

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