Croatian manager Miroslav Blazevic's preparations for his team's European Championships qualifying game in Dublin next month received another blow yesterday when midfield star Robert Prosinecki announced he would not play for Blazevic again.

The Croatia Zagreb player fell out with the national side's coach midway through France 98 after spending more time on the bench than he felt was justified. Now, in an interview published in yesterday's edition of the newspaper Nacional, the player has made it clear that he will not play again for Croatia until Blazevic departs.

"My decision is final," he says "and nobody can affect it in any way." It is, he adds, a personal choice taken in order to avoid creating "a bad atmosphere in the national team just because I'm dissatisfied with my personal relationship with the coach."

Despite the dispute in France, Prosinecki featured in five Croatia's seven games at the tournament and scored two of the team's 11 goals.

His absence for the forthcoming European Championship game will be a blow to Blazevic who is already facing the prospect of being without his top scorer Davor Suker.

The Real Madrid striker picked up a knee injury in training late last week and is expected to be out of action for at least two weeks.

His club have already confirmed that he will miss the European Super Cup match with Chelsea next Friday night and the Spaniards may be unwilling to allow their star to gamble on a return in the following week's international clash.