BBC SCOTLAND has responded to claims from Rangers managing director Stewart Robertson that the broadcaster has "vilified" striker Alfredo Morelos.

Robertson believes that contentious incidents involving Rangers players are given greater prominence during the highlights programme, which leads to the club being punished more often than the Rangers chief thinks they should.

Rangers' feud with the BBC dates back to November 2015.

Robertson said: "We, as a club, have our own issues with the BBC Scotland. BBC have refused to attend Ibrox since November 2015 - and the dispute has gone on much longer than that.

"They recently asked to come to Ibrox, but only to cover the matches. They would not be interviewing our manager and our players.

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"Now, if they are treating us differently in that respect, are there other areas where they are also treating Rangers differently in terms of the incidents which we are seeing being highlighted at the weekend?

"You only have to look at the Alfredo Morelos incident in the Old Firm game, where they seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time examining Alfredo's actions, but at no time at all did they look at any other actions from that game with the same scrutiny."

In a statement delivered to Press Association, BBC Scotland said: "The central part of this dispute is that Rangers is continuing to operate an exceptional ban of one of our journalists.

"We have offered to return to Ibrox to provide commentary, as per our contracted rights, while we try to find a permanent solution to the overall dispute, but Rangers have said this is unacceptable.

"Our coverage, including analysis and comment, is editorially fair. We will continue to speak to both Rangers and the SPFL about the situation as we believe it's in the best interest of our audiences to restore the ability to bring commentaries from all SPFL grounds."