Davie Provan insists he would not condone any suggestion Callum McGregor should've been singled out by Rangers after Kris Boyd's controversial comments.
Celtic were incensed by the pundit's claim he was surprised no Ibrox stars "tested" their captain's face mask during Wednesday night's derby.
McGregor was forced to wear the protective equipment for his side's 3-0 victory having suffered a fractured cheekbone in the Scottish Cup against Alloa just 11 days prior.
After a flood of complaints, Celtic released a statement confirming the comments were being "addressed" before Boyd himself issued a clarification later on Friday evening.
Former Celtic striker Provan says a Rangers player wearing a mask would not have been treated with any leniency or added aggression during his career, as he denonuced the idea McGregor should've been "smashed".
He told Go Radio: "What I will say, is in my time if there was an Old Firm game and a Rangers player was playing with a mask, there is no way we'd be treating him any differently.
"We'd make sure he knew we weren't going to do him any favours because he had a mask on.
"You would want to put a physical pressure on him, you would want to take advantage of any possible weakness in an Old Firm.
"Having said that... I would certainly not want to see anybody suggesting that somebody should've come and smashed Callum McGregor, for example, or tried to hurt him, or make the injury any worse.
"I certainly would not condone that."
Celtic believe Boyd's words, written in a newspaper column, crossed a line.
A club statement read: “With regards to comments made by former professional footballer Kris Boyd concerning Callum McGregor injury, we can confirm that the matter is currently being addressed by the club.”
But Boyd, facing an angry backlash online, maintained he was not encouraging anyone to hurt the Celtic captain.
He said: “Some have taken that line to mean I wanted one of the Rangers players to intentionally try and hurt the midfielder.
“However, that is absolutely and unequivocally NOT the case.
“It was simply meant as a criticism of the Rangers players for their failure to get close to McGregor.”
Celtic are still looking in to the comments and are understood to be unconvinced by the explanation.
