Aberdeen chairman Stewart Milne has described the handling of the League Cup semi-finals as "an embarrassment" and believes action has to be taken to prevent a repeat.

Milne welcomed the news that the SPFL were exploring alternatives to their original decision for the showpiece games, which was to play Aberdeen v Rangers and Celtic v Hearts back-to-back at Hampden on the same day.

That plan was slammed by Aberdeen, Hearts, fans, the police union, Scotrail and politicians. Milne believes the episode has shown the national game in a bad light.

"It's good that common sense does seem to be prevailing," he told the Evening Express. "But once again we have embarrassed ourselves in how we run Scottish football.

"We have once again displayed to the fans that they are not being treated properly.

"Semi-finals are special games for the fans and everything should be done to ensure the fans can make the most of the day.

"This is a massive occasion and a family occasion for the fans but it's not being treated like that by the SPFL."

The Aberdeen chief stressed the need to make sure the same conflict doesn't arise again, and while saying that SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster and his colleagues shouldn't take all of the blame, said that the problem could have been avoided.

"I accept we are part of that organisation so I'm not saying all the blame lies with the executive running of the SPFL," he said.

"But we've got to make sure this sort of situation never develops again.

"It's been a total embarrassment for Scottish football the fact this has become the number one topic with MSPs in the Scottish Parliament.

"Everybody and their granny has got involved in this whereas if we'd handled this properly from the outset then there would have been none of this."

At his pre-match media conference on Wednesday, Rangers manager Steven Gerrard said he expected his side still to be facing Aberdeen at Hampden.

"We just leave it to the powers that be to make the decisions," he said. "It shouldn't really affect us, we have been drawn to play Aberdeen in the first game at Hampden and don't expect anything to change.

"We'll wait to see how it pans out, looking with interest, but we didn't have a complaint in the first place and still don't.

"I mentioned last week it was a very unique situation because ourselves and Celtic are still in Europe.

"The only advice I can give is that maybe next time expect us both to get to this stage in Europe and have a different solution."