As a football fan, David Martindale would love to see the Old Firm taking on the best in the English Premier League.
But, as Livingston manager, he insists Glasgow’s big two must stay.
And he reckons their departure from Scottish football would hang on ‘turkeys voting for Christmas’.
The spotlight will fall on Celtic and Rangers this weekend as they go head to head in a clash that could settle the outcome of the Premiership title.
With nobody else in a position to challenge the pair this season, the age-old question of how to stop their stranglehold on the Scottish game has been asked once more.
And, yet again, one solution backed by Craig Levein is for the duo to head south and join the likes of Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool and Newcastle United.
Martindale acknowledges the argument that his own team might even then have a chance of winning the Scottish top-flight.
But, both on and off the pitch, he does not want to see them go.
He said: “I wouldn’t want the Old Firm to leave Scottish football.
“Everyone has their opinion on how to make Scottish football better.
“Personally, as a fan, I would love to see them in the English Premier League to see how they got on.
“But as a manager I wouldn’t want them to leave our game.
“I enjoy the challenge of playing Celtic and Rangers, and I love pitting my wits against some of the top managers in the country.
“I have taken on Steven Gerrard, Mick Beale, Giovanni van Bronckhorst at Rangers, Ange Postecoglou, Neil Lennon and Brendan Rodgers at Celtic.
“For a manager it is great to go up against these guys every year.
“It is a unique selling point to players I am trying to bring in. They get the chance to play the Old Firm and play at fantastic arenas with great atmospheres.
“I would not want to lose them from our game.”
As much as he cannot back the never-ending calls for the Old Firm to leave, and reckons Livi would struggle to survive financially if they did, he does see not there being enough of an appetite in England either.
He added: “Would they go straight into the top league? No.
“Who is going to vote that through, the Championship and League One clubs wouldn’t vote for it.
“It is like turkeys voting for Christmas.
“I don’t think it will ever happen. If it did then we would deal with it then.
“I wouldn’t want to lose them from our game as they are huge institutions that have a massive part to play in our game.
“With my Livingston manager’s head on, our business model is based on away fans, it isn’t on season ticket holders.
“It’s not rocket science that if we were to lose between 24,000 to 32,000 away fans coming here every year then we would probably be in the Championship now.
“Because where does that money come from? How do we generate revenue like that? We would lose about £750,000 to £1million.
“From a financial perspective, clubs like Livingston wouldn’t want that to happen, from a purely selfish perspective.”
