ANDY Murray will not make his views on Scottish independence known because he does not want a repeat of the furore that followed his comments about the England football team.
Murray joked in an interview ahead of the 2006 World Cup that he would be supporting anyone but England and the remark has dogged him ever since.
It is still cited by some English people as a reason not to support him, even though the reigning Wimbledon champion, who lives in England and will not be eligible to vote in September's referendum, has explained many times that it was not a serious comment.
But speaking at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, he said: "I will take a position. My thoughts on it aren't that relevant, because I can't vote myself.
"I wouldn't personally choose to make my feelings on something like that public either because not a whole lot of good comes from it.
"I don't know a whole lot about politics, and I have made that mistake in the past and it's caused me a headache for seven or eight years of my life and a lot of abuse.
"So I wouldn't consider getting involved in something like that ever again."
Murray's comments are a reversal of what he said following his Wimbledon triumph last summer, when he stated he would say what side he was on once he had made up his mind.
However, in an interview earlier last year, he said he was still reading up on the issue. "You need to figure out what's best for the country and then come to an opinion," he said. "I don't think you should judge the thing on emotion, but on what is best economically for Scotland.
"You don't want to come to a snap decision and then see the country go t**s up. I am proud to be Scottish, but I am also proud to be British. I don't think there is any contradiction in that."
Murray received a barrage of abuse when he joked in 2006 that he would back "anyone but England" in the World Cup finals. He later said: "It was a joke. I learned a lot from that; it was definitely tough. I understood then that I needed to grow up, handle myself better and stick up for myself better."
Meanwhile, Labour MP Jim Murphy has been criticised after using the word "s***" to describe the England football team as it heads to this year's World Cup. Asked about the potential impact on September's vote of an England win in Brazil, the East Renfrewshire MP said: "Well, it's not going to happen." Asked why not, he replied: "Because they're s***. You don't know anything about football. If they manage to beat Spain and Germany and Argentina then they'll have changed the rules of the sport. It won't happen. Most people in Scotland are kind of relaxed about it."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article