UK Athletics head coach Charles van Commenee said the triple jump world champion had not followed procedure, but he maintains he informed the governing body he would not be competing before he won at the Samsung Diamond League meeting in New York last weekend.

He said he had '"no relationship" with Van Commenee and accused the Dutchman of lying in his version of events.

"I'm telling the people that I need to tell that I'm not competing," the 32-year-old told BBC Radio 5 live.

"I've not tweeted once about my withdrawals until after I've told the official channels but it's not coming across like that and if Charles is still saying that we had a conversation he is lying.

"I haven't spoken to Charles since I came back from a warm-up event back in May so that's a blatant lie.

"If you're going to lie don't do it to the media.

"You're just trying to make me look bad and I don't appreciate that. I work way too hard and have worked hard to go out there and compete for my country and come back with gold medals."

Idowu insisted he had agreed a "14-month stepping stone" plan with UK Athletics at the beginning of the winter about where and when he would compete this season in the build-up to next year's Olympic Games in London.

"The European Team Championships, when it fell, would have meant that I'd be doing four competitions within four weeks and it's a long season," he said.

"I was given flight details even though I said on a number of occasions I'm not going to compete.

"That seems to have [been] lost somewhere.

"Whether Charles picked up the messages or not - that's got nothing to do with me, that's due to his staff.

"It's kind of unfair that he's gone on television and been talking to the press saying that Phil's an idiot because he tweets and this is the second time that's happened."

Van Commenee said yesterday that "there are certain channels you have to follow" and that he expected "somebody with such a profile to follow these procedures."

The Dutchman also expressed his displeasure at the culture of Twitter, saying the social networking site was "for people with too much time on their hands, for attention-seekers and clowns".

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