STEWART ROBERTSON hopes Rangers will be represented at the top table of Scottish football once again next season.

The Light Blues’ Managing Director missed out on an SPFL board place last term but Eric Riley of Celtic will stand down this summer and Stephen Thompson is no longer eligible for one of the Premiership berths after Dundee United’s relegation.

Hearts owner Ann Budge is likely to be one of the favourites to take up a post as a top flight representative later this year and Robertson hopes the Hampden hierarchy grab the opportunity to breathe fresh life into the organisation at the highest level.

He said: “Eric Riley is retiring, he is a top man who has done a good job. When I was on the SPL board, Eric was a really good guy.

“There is an opportunity for change now and an opportunity for fresh faces to get round the table and look at things a bit differently.

“In any organisation, if you don’t change it up occasionally you get strained. If you don’t bring in fresh voices, you don’t see the bigger picture and the opportunities that are there.

“In the days when I was on the board of the SPL, we had four directors from the clubs.

“This is the way the voting would work. It wasn’t a concert party [between Rangers and Celtic], it was just a natural evolution.

“You had one from Rangers or Celtic, you tended to have one from Aberdeen, Hearts and Hibs and then two from the balance. When I was at Motherwell, it was myself and Stewart Gilmour or myself and Eddie Thompson.

“That just tended to be the natural way of it because clubs would never vote for Rangers and Celtic. The other clubs would never vote for Rangers and Celtic to get on the board because the perception would be that they would have too much power and drive things through that others didn’t want.

“I can’t comment since the SPFL merger but I would be really surprised if, out of three representatives, two come from the Old Firm.”