Rohaan Simons has turned down an invitation to discuss plans about joining the Bermuda under-23 national squad.

The message that the top goal scorer the past season gave to Bermuda's Technical Director Clyde Best was blunt: "I have decided that I am not going to be playing soccer any more.'' Simons, snubbed by Best and his coaching committee in April when he was left out of the Bermuda squad for the Shell Cup in Cayman Islands, didn't need any lengthy telephone discussion about the matter when contacted by Best a week ago.

Simons' position remains unchanged since he switched back to track and field and qualified for the CAC Games in the high jump after being left off the national side.

Even after Best's attempt to lure him back, Bermuda's top goal scorer last season feels that his future lies in his first love, track and field -- a sport in which he has already represented Bermuda in by competing in the Commonwealth Games in Canada four years ago at the age of 16.

Up until yesterday, Simons said he had no idea what Best's actual plans were other than to perhaps include him in a squad to train for something that was being planned. But he is clearly uninterested.

According to the Southampton Rangers striker, the conversation was brief and to the point.

"Mr. Best called me and asked if I can make a meeting. I said, `What is this pertaining to, is it pertaining to soccer?' And he finally said, `Yes, it's the under-23 national squad,''' said Simons.

"But I said that I am not going to be able to make the meeting and that I have decided that I am not going to play soccer any more. I said that it didn't make sense because I'm finished playing soccer.'' In less than six weeks after returning to high jump, Simons says has no regrets about making the move, especially since he has already had at least two trips abroad materialise as a result of making a switch to track and field -- including qualifying for the CAC games in Venezuela next month.

Yesterday he scoffed at the BFA's attempt to contact him for the first time since ruling him out of the Shell Cup side.

"The fact of the matter is that I can't be putting my life on hold for them,'' Simons said. "I am not getting any younger. At 21 I have to make a positive move that is going to help me. Anything that comes up that is going to benefit my life, my future, I have to jump at it when it comes and while it's hot. I can't be waiting for anybody to be putting something on a plate for me.

"I have to grab things as they come. I am not financially stable as people in the BFA are. I have to go out and get mine. I can't be waiting on them. Here it is, they are contacting me the end of June after being back from Cayman early May. Now come on, it's not fair. "They excluded me from that team and that was bad enough. They didn't even have the courtesy to say, `Look, we've looked at this and we think it was wrong that we left you out after thinking about it.''' Simons feels that Best today wishes that he had taken him on the trip.

Instead, he claims, they took a team of "old guys'' to play against teams who sported many younger players who had potential.

"If they think they can keep me waiting and waiting and then throw something at me when they feel like it, they have another thing coming. Things are happening in track and field, that sport is hot right now and I am excited about being a part of it.''