Team GB football team Part I

The debate over the appearance of an all UK football team at next summer's Olympics seems to pop up every now and again and may get more intense as London 2012 draw nearer.

Here is what I wrote on the subject in January 2009:

Football should not be an Olympic event.

At least that should be as far as the argument should go, however, the reality is that for some implausible reason or another it is and certain people seem determined for 'Team GB' (an inaccurate moniker by the way as it excludes its Northern Irish athletes) to enter a football team in the London 2012 Olympics. I would question the sanity of whoever raised this idea initially as surely they could have foreseen the huge can of worms that it has opened. There are too many irresolvable issues and debates at the heart of this on political, nationalistic and logistic levels and the simplest thing to do would be to acknowledge the fact that football isn't a high profile Olympic event and not bother with the whole farce that is detracting from the efforts of those in other disciplines that are rightfully an integral part of the Olympics and are therefore more deserving of Olympic attention.

Not entering a UK team in the Olympics would also please all the club managers who may have had players taken from them for the start of the league campaign. The timetable clash between Olympic football and domestic football is another argument for its futility. Furthermore, uniquely at the Games, Olympic football has age restrictions, with only a limited quota of players aged over 23 permitted, which only serves to add to the notion that it really is no more than a sideshow that irritates clubs, disinterests fans and, evidently, causes unnecessary discussions.

The Olympics are there for the world’s finest athletes to prove themselves on a prestigious global stage but football has its own platform for this end in the FIFA World Cup which truly brings together the best footballers on the planet and conjures up one of the most popular sporting events around. So, considering this, is it really necessary for football to tag along at the Olympics in a compromised format?

It seems though that by this stage the madness has descended to such an extent that football is here to stay as an Olympic event. However, with the European Championships having preceded it that very summer, interest will, as ever, be low in Olympic football in 2012.

And yet the campaign for British inclusion in it will rage on, led principally by Englishmen who one suspects are secretly hoping for concessions to be made to allow England to solely represent the UK in men’s football as they have already been given permission to do so in women’s football. In any case these people hold no fear of the Home Nations losing their privileged independence in FIFA’s eyes because as the largest of these nations any joint British team would, logically, be comprised in the main by English players.

As a Scotsman I admit that given the choice between an all England team or a British select being chosen to represent the UK at the 2012 Olympics I would be more at ease in seeing the all England team take to the field as I do not wish to see any unnecessary precedent set which may now seem insignificant but could in years to come be cast back up to seize our national footballing identity from us.