The Scottish and Welsh FA’s have already stated their disapproval of plans to enter a Great British football team at the London 2012 Olympics, and now a former vice-president of Fifa has also slated the idea. David Will - a Scot - says that entering a team that performs well might result in people wanting to scrap the individual national sides in favour of a unified team.
I think Mr Will is talking out of something other than his mouth.
Just look at Rugby. Both codes have individual national sides as well as the Great Britain rugby league team and the British Lions in rugby union. In Union especially, the individual nations and the Lions have all been hugely successful on the World stage, and as far as I’m aware there are no plans to scrap any of those.
As the host nation and home of football, it would be ridiculous not to field a team. We have a British entry for all the other team events and those sports are not damaged by this.
The Scottish FA has said it believes fielding a British team would damage Scotland’s national identity, as well as their separate status as a footballing nation. If they don’t like being associated with England for football then I suggest they are kicked out of the Olympic team altogether, and we’ll see how they like that.
Over the last few years Scotland has attempted to distance itself from the rest of Britain politically, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they gain total independence in the near future. So why not just cut all sporting ties now, and save everyone a lot of hassle?
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