McCoist calls for Old Firm inclusion

Former Scotland striker Ally McCoist has called for the Old Firm to be given a chance to test themselves against the Premiership…

Former Scotland striker Ally McCoist has called for the Old Firm to be given a chance to test themselves against the Premiership's big boys in a British Cup tournament.

McCoist believes a competition involving the biggest clubs north and south of the border could prove a huge attraction and help give an answer to the growing debate over how Celtic and Rangers would cope in the English top flight.

"I don't know if a league would be a good thing, to be brutally honest with you," he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"There's a big argument up here, but I don't know if Scottish football would really, really survive without the Old Firm.

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"Obviously all the Motherwell fans and Dundee fans would argue the case and say 'We don't need Rangers and Celtic', but I think to a certain degree, the finance Rangers and Celtic provide in Scottish football is vitally important.

"I personally wouldn't like to see Rangers and Celtic walk out of Scottish football, but having said that, I wouldn't mind a British Cup or something like that.

"This season Celtic have produced marvellous results against not only Stuttgart and Celta Vigo and teams like that, but obviously Liverpool and Blackburn, so I don't think there's any doubt that the Old Firm can certainly compete at that level with the top teams in England.

"But I must admit, it would certainly whet the appetite of everybody, Manchester United playing Rangers, and Liverpool and Arsenal versus Celtic.

"Those are games that everybody would really look forward to, and I don't know, maybe a British Cup to start things off would certainly appeal to me.

"I'd love to see Rangers and Celtic competing with the best and obviously, Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal are the best."

Celtic chairman Brian Quinn, however, admitted he had reservations about such a competition.

"If a competition of this kind were to be proposed, it would have to be a British Cup," he said. "By that, I mean not just Celtic and Rangers representing the Scottish end of it.

"Other Scottish teams have competed well, especially in the latter part of the season, against the Old Firm, so I would want to be sure that if there were a British Cup - and who knows how that might be put together - that there was more than Celtic and Rangers involved.

"It's the kind of thing you have to dig into quite deeply to see what the structure would be, how it would fit with the rest of the domestic competitions, which are already quite onerous for the teams playing in those competitions, how it would bear on the international scene, how it would fit with European club competitions.

"It would need a bit of thinking through."

Meanwhile, Quinn revealed he will leave star striker Henrik Larsson to his own devices as he prepares to try to persuade him not to leave the club at the end of next season.

"You never say never in football, as in anything else," he said. "He's repeated recently that he proposes to go back to Sweden, his home country, at the end of the current season, so he's clearly got his mind made up.

"But there's a year to go. We have to face the fact that, at some stage, Henrik is going to go. That's inevitable. No-one goes on forever.

"I don't think it needs to happen any sooner than we want it to happen and we hope he can be persuaded to stay another year. But we have to be thinking about a replacement, there's no doubt about that.

"It's the wrong time to ask the question. He's had another marvellous season. He's mortal like the rest of us, he must be tired by this stage. I'd rather leave him alone during the summer just to compose himself."