Stewart Regan today called for Scottish football to cut its number of governing bodies from three to two.

The chief executive of the SFA said it was unhelpful for both the SPL and SFL to exist in a country of only five million people.

He reckons the SFA and one other single body should run the Scottish game.

A merger of the SPL and SFL was among the proposals submitted by the SPL's own Strategic Review Group earlier this year, but those talks have stalled after top flight clubs failed to agree on the ideal size of the elite division.

But Regan is convinced that a single league body was the way forward. He said: "I'd like to think that over time we could get to one league body. I think two league bodies in Scotland – a country of five million people – is not particularly helpful.

"It makes it very difficult to move forward in a speedy way. There are a lot of different agendas, a lot of differences of opinion, but I think one league body would be a massive step forward.

"I would urge the leagues to consider not what they can't do, but what they can.

"Could they achieve play-offs? Can they achieve perhaps a more flexible use of the loan system, so players are not standing on the sidelines every week?

"Can they look at creating a winter break for some of the right reasons. And can we look at opening up the bottom of the league to create a pyramid system?

"There are lots of things we can do, but they are not going to happen overnight. There needs to be consultation and discussion."