'What's Craig planning?': Michael Beale reacts to Levein's desire for Rangers and Celtic England flit with another set-up suggestion

The solution to the evaporation of competitiveness at the summit of Scottish game this week that Craig Levein suggested was Celtic and Rangers disappearing to England escaped the attention of Michael Beale.

The only blots on Rangers manager Michael Beale's 17-game record have come in the two derbies with Celtic, leading Craig Leven to lament the possibilities of any competitiveness at the top end of the Scottih game while the pair are in it. (Photo by Alan Harvey / SNS Group)

The Ibrox manager is amused by Levein wanting to drive the Glasgow rivals down south – where they aren’t wanted – and for that privilege each sending back £50million-a-season to the old country. A largesse that would wreck hopes of they themselves becoming competitive in their new environment …

Beale doesn’t pretend to have the answers to the dysfunctionality of a domain in which, across their past 34 domestic outings, the only time either of Scotland’s big two haven’t won is when facing each other. The 42-year-old’s only defeat in 17 games at the Rangers helm inflicted by Celtic in the recent Viaplay Cup final, an outcome that followed the ancient adversaries drawing in the new year league derby at Ibrox. But he believes there is a more straightforward restructuring that would end the present situation whereby the Scottish top flight consistently fails to meet the test of competitive equitableness over scheduling. Beale has thoughts, too, on both the stasis engendered by the SPFL’s restrictive voting structure, and harnessing the talents of thinkers such as Levein.

‘What’s Craig planning on doing with us?” he said. ‘Everyone has an opinion on the Lowland League [and B teams], and an opinion on whether Celtic and Rangers should be in the league or out it. I have a personal opinion on the split. Unless everyone plays everyone else the same amount of times it’s not a fair league. Why not just add two more teams and then we can have a six split and an eight split? The more complicated you make the competition, the less credibility it has as well. That’s not me talking down the league. I look around different leagues in Europe and [for instance] the Belgian league seems very complex. Someone needs to sit you down and explain how that works. You can be sixth in the league and finish top.

“In our league we have a split and you should be playing all five teams at home [twice]. But obviously it has to be three and two [for home and away in the closing five games, so that doesn’t work out]. And if you were to drop a position to miss out on Europe or get relegated and you haven’t played the exact same fixtures as the team that comes off best it doesn’t seem right.

“That’s just my personal opinion, but I’m just a manager. I don’t want to be the person that decides. I just want to look after Rangers. But if we are going to talk about the league then we need to have a voting system that allows everyone to vote. We have an 11-1 system and when we were talking about doing away with artificial surfaces or restructuring the league we had a really big window of opportunity and didn’t use it. I didn’t see Craig’s comments, but he has been in and around Scottish football a lot longer than me, and been national team coach, a player and manager here for many years. Can’t we get Craig and people like him in a room and give us a plan?”