Duncan Ferguson has opened up on the "biggest regret" of his career.

The former Rangers and Dundee United striker claimed ending his international career with Scotland over a bitter fued with the Scottish FA cost him up to 200 caps.

Ferguson won only seven caps for Scotland over a seven-year spell from 1992.

However, he retired in 1997 in protest after the SFA tried to hammer him with a 12-game ban on top of a 44-day jail sentence for head butting Raith Rovers defender Jock McStay.

The infamous on-field assault took place in April 1994 as Rangers played the Starks Park outfit at Ibrox. And Ferguson admits it's a massive regret of his.

The Everton legend admits he was very tempted to end his self-inflicted exile from the national side when Walter Smith and Ally McCoist took charge in 2004.

Speaking on Tony Bellew’s podcast on BBC 5Live Sport, the news Forest Green Rovers manager, said: “Absolutely the biggest regret of my career is not playing for Scotland. That’s my biggest regret and it was my pigheadedness because I thought what happened to me was a total injustice.

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"It wasn’t just the prison - when I came out of prison the SFA asked me to serve another 12-game ban

“I’d been in the jug. I did the seven weeks out of the three months and missed ‘X’ amount of games. I came out and the SFA asked me to serve another 12 game ban on top of what I’d already done.

“It wasn’t enough for them so I then had to go to the courts and fight my case and say it was like double jeopardy, or whatever it’s called.

"I’d been to prison, done a bit of bird and lost a lot of games and they wanted me to do another 12 games.

“I actually won my case. I never served those games so when I came out the jail that was it ended and I got on with my football but I got the hump with the SFA wanting me to serve their ban. But I regret it now because I should have played 200 times for Scotland.

“They asked me every year for 14 years. They asked me every year until I was 34. Ally McCoist phoned me up at 10 o’clock one night and said ‘Big man, come back, we’re playing Italy in a World Cup qualifier and you’ll play’.

"With Walter as manager I was tempted because I loved him, a great man who unfortunately isn’t with us. He was a lovely man, a great fella and a gentleman.

"And I really thought about it then, and with Ally being there as well, but I was just pigheaded. I’d put a line in the sand and that’s my biggest regret - not playing for my country.”