I had to leave Leeds United after Massimo Cellino banned me from training

Ross McCormack has opened up on the circumstances surrounding his controversial Leeds United departure. The Whites cashed in on the talismanic forward in the summer of 2014, selling McCormack to Fulham in an £11m deal.

But the Scotland international, who notched 58 goals and 31 assists in 157 matches for United, has claimed the club had to sell him to avoid "serious" financial trouble. Speaking to Open Goal, McCormack said: “If I didn’t leave, the club would have been in serious danger.

“They sacked kitchen staff, people had packed lunches, staff wasn’t getting paid, players weren’t getting paid, no dough.

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“They had absolutely no money. It was that bad that they were protecting their assets. When I came in the first day of pre-season, you know, you walk out in your trainers, you carry your boots.

“Dave Hockaday (the manager), he said you won’t need them, the owner (Massimo Cellino) said you’re not allowed to train. He wanted to make sure I didn’t get injured. When I left, he said I refused to train. Just trying to cover their back.”

McCormack maintained his stellar form in West London, scoring 42 times in 100 outings. He also racked up an impressive 22 assists.

McCormack spent two years at Fulham before being snapped up by Aston Villa. He initially featured under boss Steve Bruce but quickly fell out of favour.

He said: "I started his (Bruce's) first game in charge. It was against Wolves, I played 60-65 minutes, drew one each, I played [Jack] Grealish through and he won the penalty. It was alright. I think he'd actually tried to sign me before, maybe, when he was at Birmingham and somewhere else.

"I was renting Joe Bennett's house because the apartment I'd bought wasn't ready to move into yet. Everyday, when I drove up, I had to get out of the car and manually open these big, iron gates. It's not four foot tall, it's about six and a half, seven foot tall. One morning I woke up to manually open it, and it just wouldn't move.

"If you have a problem you ring the club doctor. So I've rung up and said: 'Doc, I've got a problem, my gate won't open. I'm ringing a company who'll come out to open it, so I can drive and get to training.' He said no problem. It got to about 10:25 and we're training at half ten and I thought I need to phone the gaffer. I was going to say 'gaffer it's Rossco, I'm still waiting on that company coming', but I didn't get a chance to. He flew off.

"That was it, it was done from there. I never spoke to him again. That was me done at Villa, I went to Nottingham Forest a few weeks after that. It could've been easily fixed. That's the one regret I have in my football career, because that has, in a sense, finished my career - not when I wanted it to, but something else has decided it.

"We could've got past that. That was a Monday or a Tuesday and we played Preston on the Saturday. We're 2-0 up and conceded twice. The first question in the presser after the game was 'McCormack wasn't in the squad, why?' I think he's maybe tried to take the heat off the team and put it onto me. If not for that, he might've fined me a week's wages and forgotten about it.

"I couldn't get another club after it. They obviously thought 'bad egg', but I was captain of Leeds and Fulham, you don't get that if you're a bad egg. It's why I don't really talk about [my time at] Aston Villa."