For three decades, it has been one of the most enduring mysteries in world football. Why did Johan Cruyff, widely regarded as one of the three greatest players ever, decide that he would not play for Holland in the 1978 World Cup finals in Argentina? The Dutch reached the final - despite being beaten by Scotland in the group stages - but lost 3-1 to the hosts, and many blamed Cruyff's absence for their failure to lift the trophy.

At the time, speculation over the reasons for his decision was rife. It was claimed he had fallen out with the Dutch football association over sponsorship. Or maybe he objected to Argentina's rightwing military junta.

Now 30 years on, Cruyff has finally broken his silence to reveal the real reason for his no-show on football's biggest stage.

The former Ajax and Barcelona player has revealed that he and his family had been the victims of a kidnap attempt a few months before the tournament.

He said several criminals entered his house in Barcelona at night and tied him and his family up at gunpoint.

The experience changed his attitude to life and was part of the reason he decided not to play in the World Cup.

In an interview with Catalunya Radio, Cruyff said: "You should know that I had problems at the end of my career as a player here and I don't know if you know that someone [put] a rifle at my head and tied me up and tied up my wife in front of the children at our flat in Barcelona."

The Dutch superstar managed to escape and the kidnap attempt was foiled. But Cruyff said it changed his outlook on life.

"The children were going to school accompanied by the police. The police slept in our house for three or four months. I was going to matches with a bodyguard," he said.

"All these things change your point of view towards many things. There are moments in life in which there are other values.

"We wanted to stop this and be a little more sensible. It was the moment to leave football and I couldn't play in the World Cup after this."

He was living at the time with his wife, Danny Coster, and their three children in Barcelona when the kidnap attempt happened at the end of 1977.

After he announced that he would not be attending the 1978 World Cup, Cruyff's wife was blamed by some fans for putting him off playing. But in the radio interview, he said he wanted to put a stop to these rumours, which have surfaced again in a recently published book by another former Barca player, Carles Rexach.

The book claimed Cruyff was influenced by his wife and their children in all his decisions.

In Holland, there is still a lingering belief that if Cruyff had played in the 1978 World Cup finals, Holland may have come home with the coveted trophy. They have never come as close since.

Marteen Wijffels, a Dutch football journalist, said: "If he had played we could have won the World Cup. He would have made us stronger. I think people were very disappointed at the time he did not go."

But last night, Archie Gemmill, whose mazy run to score the winning goal for Scotland in their pyrrhic victory over the Dutch at the group stage is the stuff of Scottish folklore, insisted Cruyff's presence would have made little difference in that match at least.

"If he had played, it would not have made a blind bit of difference. Maybe we would have beaten them 7-2 instead of 3-2. We won the game, and that is it."

Cruyff enjoyed a glittering footballing career. He was first selected to play for Ajax at the age of 17 and went on to win three European Cups with the Dutch side.

He was a star at the 1974 World Cup for Holland even though they lost the final to West Germany.

He later played for Barcelona before returning as manager, leading the club to the European Cup in 1992. He was voted European Footballer of the Year, three times during the 1970s.

Graham Hunter, a Barcelona-based football commentator, said: "As a footballer, Cruyff was elegant, visionary and skilled beyond measure. He ranks third among the best footballers ever, after Pele and Maradona."

Cruyff, 60, declined to say if the kidnap attempt was one of the reasons why he decided to leave Barcelona in 1978.

But his spokesman, Joan Patsi, confirmed Cruyff's comments. "Johan had asked police for protection for sometime before this as he had been receiving threats. It is true this happened," he said.

"Another reason he decided not to go to the World Cup was he did not feel he was at his best and you have to be 100%."

In 1981 another Barca star, the Spain forward Quini, was kidnapped and held to ransom until freed by police after a month.

Backstory

Kidnapping for ransom or political gain has become such a universal agony that it is easy to forget that 30 years ago it was the world's rich nations that suffered most. In the 1970s, the proliferation of leftwing guerrilla groups from the US to Germany, Spain and Italy determined to wage war on wealth, capitalism and the established political order left a trail of victims and instilled fear among the rich and famous that anyone was a target. Patty Hearst, an American newspaper heiress was seized in 1974 by urban guerrillas known as the Symbionese Liberation Army and went on to join her captors. Peter Lorenz, a conservative candidate for mayor of Berlin, was abducted and freed in 1975. Hanns Martin Schleyer a German industrialist, was kidnapped in 1977, held for 43 days while ransom demands were made, and ultimately murdered. The Red Army Faction behind the abduction also counted leading banker Alfred Herrhausen and Karl Heinz Beckurts among its victims. In Italy the communist Red Brigades kidnapped Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro. He was killed after a 55-day standoff. Spain was less acutely affected, though Eta and a shadowy leftwing group known as Grapo also resorted to abductions for political gain. Sports stars and athletes were rarely targeted, though the hostage taking at the Munich Olympics in 1972, which resulted in the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes, arguably set the chilling standards for the next decade. As the tactics migrated, footballers found themselves vulnerable in South America, as family members fell prey to kidnapping for ransom.

Mark Rice-Oxley