Yaya Toure: Ivory Coast midfielder accuses Manchester City of denying him chance to spend time with his late brother Ibrahim before flying out to World Cup

Toure claims the club 'did not want to give me a few days off' to see his brother, who lost his battle with cancer last week

Unhappy returns: Yaya Touré didn’t even get a singing telegram on his big day (Getty Images)

Yaya Toure has claimed that he was not allowed to spend time with his late brother Ibrahim after his club Manchester City denied him to see him before he lost his battle with cancer last week.

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Ibrahim was in Manchester where he was being tended to by the Toure family, but the Ivory Coast international travelled to Dubai for an end-of-season tour before joining up with the national team for their World Cup campaign.

It was revealed last week that while both Yaya and Kolo Toure were with the Ivory Coast squad in Brazil, Ibrahim had sadly lost his battle with the illness, but the Ivorian Football Federation confirmed that the pair would continue with the World Cup campaign after learning the tragic news on Thursday.

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However, in his column for French publication France Football, Toure has claimed that the Premier League champions denied him the chance to see his brother before his death at the age of 28.

“I confess that I am still very sad. I’m suffering because I feel I have done nothing useful for him the last few weeks,” said Toure.

“At the end of the season, I wanted to stay for four or five days with my brother before I flew to prepare for the World Cup with Ivory Coast, except that City did not want to give me a few days.

“I went to celebrate the title championship in Abu Dhabi while my brother was in his sickbed. By fortune, Kolo was at his bedside. After that I blame myself for not insisting and for not leading them to respect me.”

Toure also admitted that in his opinion, the run of injuries he picked up towards the end of the season was caused by deterioration of his own mental state at see his brother’s condition decline, and feels that the club knew about “the hardest time of his life”.

“However, club officials knew that I had been suffering for a few months seeing the health of my brother decline,” added Toure. “This is the reason I had several injuries at the end of the season, because my head had taken control of my body. These last four months have probably been the hardest in my life.”

The claim is the latest of incidents of disagreements between Toure and the club, after the midfielder revealed that the failure to properly acknowledge his birthday last month had led him to question his future at the Etihad.

Specifically, it was the absence of a birthday cake that was said to offend him the most as well as a handshake and a happy birthday wish from the club’s officials, although City went on to confirm that they had wished him a happy birthday via their Twitter profile as well as presenting the 31-year-old with a cake on the flight to Abu Dhabi.

City also have a good record when it comes to allowing players time off is they wish to, having previously allowed Carlos Tevez compassionate leave following the birth of his premature baby as well as allowing Emmanuel Adebayor as much time off as he required following the attack on the Togolese team bus during the African Cup of Nations in 2010.

Defender Pablo Zabaleta was also allowed absence to spend time with his father in 2011 after he was involved in a car crash.