Scotland boss calls time on Steven Fletcher’s international career

Steven Fletcher has been told he won't play for his country again.SNS Group

Craig Levein has told Steven Fletcher his international career is over as long as he remains Scotland manager.

The Wolves striker hasn’t played for his country, having declared himself unavailable to play for a Carling Nations Cup tie with Northern Ireland last year.

Scotland face a post-season friendly with the USA in Florida in a fortnight and Levein has moved to end speculation over the striker by revealing he won’t be picked again.

He said: "I won't consider Fletcher for any matches.

“This decision has been a bit of time in coming.

“I’m very much looking at us going into a new campaign for the World Cup – and I consider our friendlies against the USA and Australia [in August] as warm-ups for the qualifiers – what I don’t want to do is be going into this campaign with a distraction.

“So effectively, from now, I won’t be considering Steven Fletcher for any of the friendlies or competitive matches.”

With Fletcher scoring 11 goals for the relegated Premier League side this term, many Scotland fans have called for the duo to bury their differences ahead of the upcoming World Cup 2014 qualifying campaign.

However Levein says he has made his decision in the best interests of the country.

He added: “Fifteen months is a long time. That’s it finished now. I look at a lot of things that we’ve learned from the last qualifiers and what’s really important to me is that we have a group of players who value playing for Scotland.

“It sounds such a simple thing but they are desperately keen on playing for their country, and I would be doing them a disservice if I was to consider putting anyone in the squad who was less than 100 per cent certain about playing for their country.

“Let’s be honest, what do I want as an indication of how important it is to play for Scotland? Do I want somebody like Steven Fletcher, or do I want somebody like Darren Fletcher – someone who has put his health on the line continually to play for his country?”

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