Erling Haaland has just handed Aston Villa £175m windfall

Aston Villa have qualified for the Champions League next season after Erling Haaland’s double for Manchester City ended Tottenham Hotspur’s hopes of a fourth-place finish.

City won 2-0 in North London on Tuesday night to go top of the Premier League but there was plenty of reason to celebrate in parts of Birmingham as Villa clinched fourth spot with a game to spare.

Haaland opened the scoring against Spurs in the second half after tapping home from Kevin De Bruyne’s pass. He would go on to add a second from the penalty spot in the 91st minute but only after substitute goalkeeper Stefan Ortega made a stunning save to deny Son Heung-min one-on-one after the South Korean was clean through on goal after pouncing on an error from Manuel Akanji on 86 minutes. A draw would still not have been enough for Spurs to catch Villa, with Unai Emery’s men sat five points clear of the North London outfit.

A fourth-placed finish is set to land the club a huge chunk in prize money from the Premier League, as well as from UEFA. Reaching the Champions League group stage was worth £13.37m in the 2023-24 season, with that figure likely to increase for 2024-25 with a new format to the competition.

A fourth-placed finish will also equate to at least £162m in Premier League prize money based on a merit payment for finishing fourth, along with an equal share payment and facility fees for hosting TV games. The £162m is based on last season's figure and therefore on the low side of the estimate with merit and equal share payments likely to increase while Villa are set to receive 20 sets of facility fees, after they appeared on TV that number of times this season.

Their most recent outing in front of the broadcast cameras was against Liverpool on Monday night as they came from 3-1 down late on to rescue a draw. They will finish a memorable season at Crystal Palace on Sunday afternoon safe in the knowledge that they will end the campaign in fourth spot regardless of the result.