Burley: I never told Scotland players they could drink after game

Published on Saturday 11 April 2009 19:57

SCOTLAND manager George Burley has denied it was his decision to sanction alcohol for the players on the night of the drinking debacle at Cameron House that has rocked Scottish football.

In the version of events until now accepted as fact, Burley had been blamed for allowing drink to be consumed when the squad returned to their Loch Lomond retreat at 4am after the 3-0 defeat by the Netherlands in Amsterdam a fortnight ago.

But it has emerged that team liaison officer Richard Simpson and sports scientist Brian Ewing gave the okay for the bar to be opened. Scotland captain Barry Ferguson and goalkeeper Allan McGregor took full advantage, indulging in a seven-hour session, before abusing coach Steven Pressley after he found them still drinking the following lunchtime. The two players were dropped to the bench for the Iceland game, from where they made the V-sign gestures that ended their international careers.

Burley, who requested a briefing with the Sunday press two days ago to "clear everything up", said that "two of my staff innocently agreed to let them (the players] have a drink".

"They put their trust in the players. I was unaware they had a drink, unaware they were at the bar. The bottom line is that you try to trust people and hope they act in a responsible manner but that wasn't the case," Burley added.

The SFA insists there was no break from the norm in the officials agreeing to the request for alcohol after a trip. Yet, questions will be asked of the two officials' part in granting of a request that backfired spectacularly. Simpson, a 'fixer' for the senior players, has been more than a decade with the governing body and has been embroiled in controversy before.

Last year, Simpson decided not to inform Burley immediately of Lee McCulloch's decision to retire from international football after it was imparted to him by the Rangers player in a phonecall. And in 2005, he was blamed for the administrative error that resulted in the banned Steven Whittaker playing for the under-21s in a match against Italy, which subsequently led to the SFA informing UEFA of his ineligibility and Italy being awarded a 3-0 win.

Burley this week presented himself as a wronged party following two weeks of relentless criticism. He said he had been "disappointed and hurt" by Ferguson's and McGregor's actions on the bench.

"That was especially so since the last words of my team talk were 'the whole nation's looking at you'. Everyone's looking at your commitment and behaviour, I said, so let's go out there and stick together. So I felt (what they did] was very disrespectful."