Gordon Smith now admits that the was a possibility that Scotland would have travelled round the world to play New Zealand in a friendly in May. The SFA Chief Executive still maintains there were never any direct discussions with the country's football federation on the issue. Earlier this week, Smith was in the media demanding an explanation from New Zealand Football after they claimed the SFA had approached them to play a pre-World Cup friendly. NZF chief executive Michael Glading accused the SFA of asking for around £250,000 to fly out to Wellington for a game against the All Whites. He also said the Scots remained potential opponents in May on neutral territory in Austria ahead of this summer's World Cup in South Africa.

The statement from down under annoyed Smith, who has nevertheless subsequently confirmed a game against New Zealand might have happened had new Scotland boss Craig Levein not been against the idea.  Smith said: "We had looked to see about maybe having a friendly in Australia. If that was the case then there was a possibility we'd have taken a double-header while the players were in that part of the world. New Zealand was considered; we never had any discussions with them whatsoever. There's a certain delay that you have to have at the end of the season before you can play an international match because it's World Cup year. That's fine if your players are staying together and in order to play in the World Cup. But if you're not, your players are leaving it quite long after the season's finished. So Craig felt it was better we don't have a May friendly."

Smith is still waiting for an explanation for Glading's comments. He said: "We haven't heard anything more from New Zealand. We were quite surprised by the comments because we never had any discussions with them at all. We put our side of it out there. So at this moment in time, I'd be quite interested to know what New Zealand's reaction is to our comments." The SFA chief revealed he had also had "elementary discussions" with one or two national associations over a Scotland friendly in August.