Man City's Stephen Ireland has revealed the full story behind the infamous 'Grannygate' affair.
Player felt he needed to back-up his girlfriend at a difficult time
Manchester City midfielder Stephen Ireland has revealed the full story behind the infamous 'Grannygate' affair.
Ireland has received hate mail after lying about a death in his family to be sent home from international duty when representing the Republic of Ireland.
He then pulled out of a subsequent squad to play Germany and Cyprus as he 'would not do his country or himself justice' and has not played for Ireland since.
Ireland told the
Daily Telegraph: "What I'm going to say now has never come out before.
Bad press
"But I feel it is maybe time to say something because I'm getting a very bad press in Ireland, with hate mail being sent here to the training ground."
Ireland received a call from his distressed girlfriend last September just hours before Ireland's clash in Slovakia.
"She was crying like mad, saying she'd had a miscarriage," said Ireland, who kept the news to himself and scored in the 2-2 draw.
But the then Republic boss Steve Staunton had heard something else on his return to the dressing room.
The 22-year-old continued: "The boss said there'd been a death in my family. My girlfriend had rang Steve's secretary and told her that.
Complete stranger
"She just wanted me home and she didn't want to tell a complete stranger that she'd had a miscarriage."
So Ireland flew home to find that media reports were saying that his grandma had died.
He added: "I thought 'Oh, no!' They'd dug a hole for me. A big hole. Steve said I should have just told him the truth. At the time, though, it was just chaos.
"My girlfriend was young. I was young. I didn't want to tell everyone my private business.
"Not only that, I couldn't turn around and say my girlfriend was lying. I had to stand by her."
