Because that is what these games are and no amount of tut tutting by a tartan clad fud in his Caterpillar boots will tell me otherwise. It is club football that pays the wages, it is club football that gives loads of these players their multi million pound lifestyles and it is club football that should always be uppermost in a player's mind.
Y'all should know the drill from me by now. Injury in an international match should be treated as industrial misconduct and the players should be paid the square toot of hee-haw by their club until the player is back to the condition he was in, when he was loaned out to the Football Association in question in the first place.
But anyway, I digress; regarding this Kris Boyd 'drama'; would there have been such a stushie over one player's defection from the international scene or said player's performance and every attribute poured over and nit picked at if he hadn't been a Rangers player?
Let me state up front, I don't care much for the ins and outs and the politics of the Scotland squad. It was only the other day that I became aware that Burley used six subs against Norn Iron recently but Boyd was not one of them. Although I do realise he had grounds for complaint that two novices were picked ahead of him against Norway.
In saying all that, I reckon Boyd was wrong to leave the international scene in the manner he did and all he has done is invite a press rhat pack who do not need an excuse to stick the boot in anyway, to do so. He is also living in cloud cuckoo land if he thinks he can bin playing for one Scotland manager but can expect a call up from the next one down the line. He wouldn't get away with that at Ibrox… oh, wait a minute…….!
Although I like to see Scotland win my main priority at all times is the well being of any Rangers players involved. Therefore it seems a bit strange to me that Boyd's decision to retire from the international scene at this time comes hard on the heels of an Ibrox colleague, Lee McCulloch doing something similar last month. However, what really set the cat among the pigeons for me was the statement from Scotland's captain, our own Barry Ferguson, sticking up for Boyd in the rags.
Is there something going on here? I think we should be told. One player leaving may be an accident, two players leaving might be construed as careless but when your captain comes out and says he feels for someone who's abandoned ship then it seems to me everything is not quite right in Brigadoon.
Not that I could care less, but even when being interviewed, Burley doesn't come across as being an authoritive or commanding figure. So when he had to descend to the rules of the playground and justify not playing Boyd by saying that 'Walter doesn't play him either' then you just know someone has just stuck a lead weight in Burley's jacket, which let's be honest was on a 'shoogly' nail to start with.
As for Burley's mentor upstairs at Hampden. We are led to believe that Gordon Smith was contemplating banning Boyd from international football for life because of his walkout?
Football at all levels, not just on the international stage, has been riddled throughout history with players and managers having fall outs. So all of a sudden we get two walk outs from Rangers players and the head honcho at the SFA wants to play hard ball? It seems to me we now have a guy who is under severe pressure to run away from his past.
On the Kris Boyd issue, George Burley and Gordon Smith have won this round, and it is a battle they were entitled to and probably deserved to win but they should not get too comfy resting on their laurels, be they real or imagined. Because when this WC qualifying section is over, and it is all but over just now, then the press that have backed them up this week will be preying for Burley's blood and after that it will be the guy who employed him. It is only a matter of time.
The Govanhill Gub.