What Hearts can earn from Europa League or Conference League and the difference is not as big as you might think

By the end of the week, Hearts will know who stands between them and a place in the Europa League group stage.

FC Zurich and Linfield go head-to-head in Switzerland on Thursday night, when they play the second leg of their third qualifying round tie. The Swiss champs ran out 2-0 winners in Belfast last week thanks to goals from Tosin Aiyegun and Wilfried Gnonto at Windsor Park.

Bar a stunning comeback by David Healy’s side, then Robbie Neilson will in all likelihood be preparing his players to face Zurich. The Jambos are set to face them at St Gallen’s Kyburnpark on Thursday, August 18 due to a concert being played at Stadion Letzigrund the following evening. The return leg takes place at Tynecastle a week later. The capital club head into the clash knowing that regardless of the result, they’ll have group stage football to look forward to. Win, and it's in the Europa League.

Lose, and they drop into the Europa Conference League. There is a difference in terms of standard of opposition, but also prize money on offer. However, the differential is not as much as you might think.

Twitter account @SPFLTurnover has crunched the numbers and how they break down in each competition. All clubs taking part in the group stage of each competition are awarded starting fees, performance-related fixed amounts, coefficient-related amounts and and variable amounts related to market pool.

25 per cent allocated to starting fees (£98,79m)

30 per cent performance related fixed amounts (£117,689m)

15 per cent coefficient related (£58, 866m)

30 per cent variable amounts (£17,689m)

40 per cent allocated to starting fees (£79,344m)

40 percent performance related fixed amounts (£97,344m)

10 per cent coefficient-based amounts (£19,833m)