Manchester City midfielder Stephen Ireland has explained why he won't play for Republic of Ireland boss Giovanni Trapattoni.
Ireland, outstanding for City, has no second thoughts about potentially missing next year's World Cup.
"Even with the prospect of the World Cup, it hasn't crossed my mind once about going back," Ireland told the Mirror. "I never felt part of the squad and I never will.
"I met Trapattoni for a chat at a hotel near Manchester Airport last year but that did nothing for me. It made no sense whatsoever. In fact, I felt like there was a lot of arrogance going on, so I just felt like I wasn't really interested.
"Me and my financial adviser, who's looked after me all my life and is someone I really trust, sat down with Trapattoni, his right-hand man and Liam Brady. In the middle of chatting, like we are now, he'd have four different phones going off and he kept leaving the room to talk to people.
"He'd come back, say 'sorry where was I?' but then another one would go off and after the third of fourth time this happened, I head another phone ringing. Trapattoni went over to where the phone was ringing and got it out of one of his bags. We were just sat there like, 'what is going on?'. After that we had a chat and, I guess he shouldn't have to sell it to me. But I think he should have made some sort of effort to sell it to me, and he just never really did that.
"I think he felt like I'd just want to come running back, because I think at the time he didn't rate me as a player.
"But that was before last season. Since then he hasn't spoken to me once. Then, over the summer, Ireland had a game away against Bulgaria. A week before that game I was in my garden, playing with the kids. I answered my phone by accident, as I was checking the time, and it was Trapattoni. He asked me if there was a possibility of meeting up in the future. I hadn't given it any thought, but I said guess there was no harm in meeting him.
"I thought he meant in the next few days, for the Bulgaria game. I said 'when?' and he said 'four months'. I thought that was weird, but I said I suppose it wouldn't do any harm.
"But I think he made that call for his own benefit, rather than mine, because he said to me 'Is it okay if I tell the Press I've spoken to you and there's a chance of you coming back?'.
"I said 'you can tell people we've spoken and maybe we'll meet up in the future, but don't say there's a chance of me coming back because there probably isn't'. As soon as he switched from taking about meeting up with me to announcing it to the media, I knew what his agenda was."
