Jilted Kevin Foley has accused Ireland football manager Giovanni Trapattoni of ‘betrayal’ after his last minute expulsion from the European Championship squad.

An angry and disappointed Foley made the accusation on Tuesday night after he proved his fitness by playing in a warm-up game against a Tuscan selection in Italy.

Ireland won the game 5-0 but it was overshadowed by events earlier that day when Trapattoni announced that Paul McShane would replace Foley in his 23 man Euro squad.

Trapattoni claimed Foley wasn’t fit enough to retain his place in the squad but the player has now disputed that.

Wolves defender Foley said: “It is hard to take, you know. I sort of feel betrayed. I don’t want to go into too much detail. I just feel betrayed.”

After playing for 45 minutes in the training game, Foley added: “I wanted to prove a point, that I was fit to play because from what I understood, I could have trained last week, Thursday, Friday and been involved in the game against Bosnia on Saturday.

“Trapattoni said there was no rush and we will wait to train in Italy, so I trained for two days in Italy and felt great. And then all of a sudden, he pulls me this morning just before the end and says, ‘You are not in the squad’, and that is hard to take.

“I have done everything I can. That is all I can do. Words can’t really describe it. It was tough.”

“The lads have been great, but what happened happened, there’s nothing I can do about it now. I hope the lads go on and do as well as they can from the tournament.”

Foley has also turned down an invitation from Trapattoni to stay with the squad for the Euros even though he won’t be involved.

He said: “I go home tomorrow. I don’t want to talk about that. It’s a lot to take in.”