McGeady, who earned 93 caps for Ireland, talked about his international choice on GO Radio. He had played for Scotland at a youth level in a tournament based around the 1998 World Cup.

He said: "Well no, so I played for Scotland when I was like 12. It was like this mini World Cup, it was France 98, and I was able to play in that.

"So when you're a kid you get asked to go along these trials, and I got asked, and I got picked, but after that, this was like a kind of side version; this wasn't really Scotland."

He explained that he could not play for Scotland schoolboys at Celtic because of the rules then. McGeady said: "The Scotland schoolboys I wasn't, no, because you had to play for your school to be eligible to play for the schoolboys, and I asked the question and they said, 'No, you can't because you don't play for your school.'

"Ireland never had that rule, so I just started playing for Ireland. So no, they never asked me, and then that rule's changed now after me and James McCarthy."

When asked if he would have chosen Scotland if they approached him first, McGeady said: "Probably yeah, yeah probably."

"I grew up more of an Ireland fan than a Scotland fan, being a Catholic and a Celtic fan that was just the way I was brought up."