The unique Old Firm derby should be taken on the road before the rivalry between the clubs is diluted outside of Glasgow.

That's the view of Charlie Stillitano, the chairman of the New York-based Relevent Sports, the group behind the organisation of the International Champions Cup, which Celtic form part of this summer.

The American believes that the game between Celtic and Rangers should be taken on tour to appeal to a considerable ex-pat generation – but he has warned that it needs to be organised before the affection for the clubs dies out.

With the UEFA Champions League, the English Premiership and La Liga beamed into homes around the world every week now, Stillitano’s argument is that there is now a new generation growing up with their affection towards Barcelona, Manchester City and Real Madrid.

So he believes the Glasgow giants ought to capitalise on their market appeal while they can.

“Why not export Celtic-Rangers? It makes perfect sense for me,” he said.“I’d like to do it every year, or at least every couple of years.

“It’s completely safe in North America but I also think it could be managed at a place like Wembley.

“They are used to the biggest events in the world. How could they not handle it?

“One of the problems you have with clubs like Celtic and Napoli, who have fans all around the world, is that the support is dying in these places.

“The diehard fans are getting older.

“I know a Napoli fan who runs a pizzeria. He has photos of Maradona, Jesus and the Pope on the wall. This guy is no longer on the frontline. He is now the owner. He has kids from a South American background working for him.

“He now lives in Long Island and he tells me, ‘Bring Napoli to America and we’ll fill the biggest stadiums’. I say, ‘We won’t’.

“It’s a challenge because the kids are all growing up supporting other teams.

“If we don’t start taking Celtic-Rangers across the world, then the support is only going to be local for these teams.

“Then, eventually, it will die out across the world because the kids of Celtic fans now follow Barcelona or Bayern Munich instead.”

Stillitano believes the clock is ticking if it is to become a genuine possibility.

“We had the idea for a Rivalry Cup in America. They tell me I’m insane!” he joked.

“The plan was to have River-Boca, Celtic-Rangers, Roma-Lazio – all the really friendly rivalries.

“One of the things that was strange is that some of these games really translate well into North America.

“We think a Celtic-Rangers rivalry in the US wouldn’t be anywhere near like it is in Scotland.

“The idea was to do one in Toronto, one in Boston and that it would be a fun thing to do.

“But these are the types of events we should do before this rivalry dies.

“Or that it becomes so local that people don’t understand the beauty of Celtic-Rangers.

“We want to host it away from Scotland, whether that is Wembley, Asia or North America.

“We did United-Liverpool in Miami. Great game, no trouble.

“There was a lot of fun ribbing and that was it. We are also doing the Manchester derby in Beijing.”

Celtic will play English champions Leicester in this summer’s ICC along with Barcelona and Inter Milan. But another idea of Stillitano’s is to implement a British Champions Cup too with the winners of the Ladbrokes SPFL and the Barclays Premier League going up against one another for bragging right. A trophy is to be commissioned and Stilliano joked that it is a fixture that could become as big as the Ashes in years to come.

"We are going to have a trophy made by Thomas Lyte,” he said. “We are going to commission that it goes back and forth between the Scottish and English champions, whoever wins it. It's something we would like to create. But one of the problems we have is Celtic having the three rounds of Champions League qualifiers so it's hard to say it would be part of the ICC every year.

"But we are committed to having a (Battle of Britain) trophy every year and it just so happens we've included it within the ICC, which is nice.

"Anything you can do to make it special. Maybe it can be done on it's own, perhaps like the Charity Shield in England.

"It's significant. Sir Alex Ferguson tells me all the time that when a Scotsman goes to England he wants to prove himself. He feels that's a quality that a lot of Scottish managers share and that's why they have done so well down in England.

"I can understand that and we thought it would be a nice bellwether to have this Battle of Britain every year. “