Near the end of the 2011–12 season, Levein advised the Scottish media that he would not pick Fletcher again. Following Fletcher's £12 million move to Sunderland in August 2012, Levein re-iterated that Fletcher would not feature for Scotland again whilst he was manager. Levein also criticised the transfer fee paid by Sunderland as "quite obscene" and claimed that Fletcher had made no effort to rejoin the national squad. The dispute came into further focus after Fletcher performed well for Sunderland and Scotland only scored once in their first two 2014 FIFA World Cup qualification matches. Fletcher stated on his Twitter account that he would be willing to play for Scotland. His agent claimed that Fletcher had made an attempt to reconcile with Levein in September 2011, but nobody had provided details of how they could meet. On 2 October 2012, Fletcher was recalled to the Scotland squad for their World Cup qualifiers with Wales and Belgium.