Glasgow: Former Celtic players accused the club of refusing to invest sufficiently in the squad after the Scottish champions wasted a Champions League reprieve by crashing out of the competition in the play-off round.

Having been beaten 6-1 on aggregate by Legia Warsaw in the previous qualifying round, Celtic were reinstated in the tournament by Uefa because the Polish club had fielded a suspended player for the last few minutes of the second leg.

However, after drawing 1-1 away at Slovenian champions NK Maribor last week, they lost Tuesday’s home match 1-0 and will now play in the Europa League instead of the highly lucrative Champions League group stages.

Rubbing salt into the wounds of elimination is the fact that Norwegian manager Ronny Deila and his team have achieved the unwanted distinction of being knocked out of the same competition twice in three weeks.

“I think they’re stockpiling cash,” former Scottish international winger Andy Walker, who played almost 200 times for the club, told Sky Sports on Wednesday.

“They’re not prepared to pay serious money for anyone with pedigree. They’re very much a selling club.” Former hero Charlie Nicholas was equally critical, claiming of the 45-time Scottish champions and 1967 European Cup winners: “The only interest of board members is cash and finance. That’s why they spend £2 million pounds ($3.31 million, Dh12.1 million) on budget players who don’t have any experience of the Champions League.

“The quality they’ve brought in is very, very poor. In the cold light of day what’s going to happen is that fans won’t be turning up and Celtic can write off the trust that the fans were giving them.” Terry Butcher, the former England international who played for great rivals Rangers, added: “They’re not even half the side they were. It’s really disappointing for Scottish football.”

Meanwhile, Celtic manager Ronny Deila admitted his side are not good enough for the Champions League after blowing their second chance at qualifying for the group stage of the competition.

The Scottish champions, who had been outclassed 6-1 by Legia Warsaw in their third qualifying round match, had been handed a reprieve when the Polish champions were thrown out of the competition for fielding an ineligible player.

It was a fourth defeat in just nine competitive matches for Deila, who was criticised for making 10 changes in the 1-0 loss to Inverness last weekend, and the Norwegian was damning in his verdict of his side.

“I think we are better now than we were against Legia but we are a long way from Champions League level,” he said.

“When you have two chances and you don’t take them then there are no excuses.

“In the end we got what we deserved. We have to be honest. We haven’t been good enough and didn’t deserve to go through to the Champions League; that’s the truth.

“That’s the level we are at all now and that’s the level we need to work up from.

“Of course it is very disappointing and this feeling I have to take with along with the players, the staff and the whole club.

“We haven’t deserved to be in the Champions League and we have to start building now.”

A couple of hundred disgruntled Hoops fans gathered at the front doors of Celtic Park following the defeat to vent their anger at the players and the club’s board of directors for a perceived lack of investment in the playing squad.

The defeat means Celtic, who had been looking to qualify for the group stage for the third year running, have lost out on a potential £20 million cash boost from the competition and heaps pressure on Deila early in his Celtic career.

However, the Norwegian said he expected to add more players to his squad before the end of the transfer window.

“I really understand the fans’ anger,” he said.

“The only thing I can do is assure them that we are going to work really hard every day now so that next year we can hopefully stand in the same position next year with a whole other feeling than we have right now.

“The club wants to invest in players but we have to agree on things. I’ve come straight in and I’ve only been here a short time.

“It’s very difficult to get the quality of player that I know the fans want to get and I want to get as well with the salaries we pay.

“But I think in this window we are going to have a signing or two more. We need now to build up the team so we can handle this situation next year. In the autumn we are going to see a bigger and better squad.

“Now it’s Europa League and we’re going to do everything we can to achieve things in that competition.”

His Maribor counterpart Ante Simundza was delighted after leading his side to the group stages for the first time since 1999 and suggested the pressure the home fans placed on their own side had helped his side to victory.

“The feeling I have is phenomenal and we did what we intended to do,” Simundza said.

“At Celtic Park it is very hard to play for every team — the home team as well — because the fans put a lot of pressure on them. The home fans are very tough and always want their team to win.

“I played on this and it was good for us.”