Did Johan Cruyff avoid the 1978 World Cup due to protest, security, or retirement?

Factual Questions
1

Several times, when a World Cup of Football (Soccer, for the USA crowd) was going on, a history of World Cups was regularly published in the main newspaper in the old country. It reported that the reason the Dutch superstar Johan Cruyff was missing in Argentina 78 was that he had retired, and that he even refused an appeal from the queen of Holland to play for the Netherlands in the 1978 World Cup!

Years later, I found how rightist the mainstream press is in Latin America: it turned out that Cruyff refused to participate because he was protesting the military dictatorship in Argentina! But recently, I saw other reports in the British press and elsewhere that only say that Cruyff refused to go because of "security concerns”. Could it be that Cruyff was so aloud with his protests to the Argentinean military that he got threatened?

What is the straight dope on this?

2

That’s a good question. Dutch football has had a long tradition of the star players being difficult to get along with.

Van Basten was plagued with injuries. Gullit was always arguing with coaches.

Even without Cruyff, the Dutch still made it to the final in 1978.

3

This site says it was a dispute with the Dutch FA
http://www.planetworldcup.com/LEGENDS/cruyff.html

This guy speculates that Cruyff was threatened by Argentinian terrorists:
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Park/8885/Cruyff.htm

However the vast majority of sites state that Cruyff just didn’t want to play anymore internationally, he didn’t like the coach and the management and what he got paid.

4

Thanks for that BobT, the reason why I asked was because I do remember the shock of finding information that contradicted the mainstream newspapers.

Indeed, I was not imagining it: I did more searchs and this more official site gives credence to the political angle:
http://2002.fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/02/en/pf/h/pwc/1978.html

Could it be that the majority of the sites may be also using as it source the same biased press of the day?

I’m tempted on trying to contact Cruyff himself, anyone knows how to get in contact with him?

5

This may be a long shot but you might find him through the following site. I think it might be his latest business venture.
http://www.greenyroom.com/ukindex.htm