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AndyNeill
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Reged: 27/07/2007
Posts: 20
UK Team at 2012 Olympics?
      #12874 - 28/08/2008 16:00

With Beijing 2008 now a memory, thoughts are turning to London 2012. Football is always a huge draw at the Olympics in terms of spectators (and hence revenue) and the idea of the football tournament NOT including the hosts is clearly absurd.
The question is, which players will be available to that host team? Just English players or Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish too? Seb Coe and Gordon Brown both want a joint team, but Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond and most of the Scots, Irish and Welsh FA board members are against it.
They fear that a joint team, even as a supposed one-off, would provide leverage to the various other FIFA members who begrudge the fact that the UK is allowed to field four teams instead of just one, and who would like the joint team to be permanent in World Cups too.
Unfortunately I would have to agree that that risk is just too great. I would love to see a United Kingdom team in 2012 if it really was a one-off, but as a proud Scot I would be horrified to lose our footballing independence. Scotland's national team is a huge, huge part of our national identity, the way FC Barcelona is to Catalans. How many Scots would or would not get picked for a UK team is irrelevant.
On the other hand, is seems foolish to simply hand a rival nation (England)'s players all the exposure and tournament experience that would be gained from participating.
I feel that the answer lies in the draw for the qualifiers for the 2011 Under-21 championships. Those qualifiers already double as the Olympic qualifiers, so the four UK nations could just be put in a separate group. They could then effectively play their own tournament, on the FIFA and UEFA-approved international dates set aside for Under 21 games. The winning country would then provide Britain's team for the Under-23 tournament in 2012.

What are other people's thoughts? I would be interested in overseas readers' opinions -how strongly does the rest of the world object to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland having their own teams?


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RichieC
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Reged: 17/07/2006
Posts: 534
Re: UK Team at 2012 Olympics? [Re: AndyNeill]
      #12876 - 28/08/2008 17:36

I suppose it's never been of utmost importance before now as, with the Olympics being 'abroad' no-one would be bothered if we field a team or not. With the Olympics now returning to the UK, it would seem a tad insane not to have some form of UK representation, especially given we're regarded as being the 'home' of the professional game (though the Olympics are about amateurs of course...no, really they are...).

My own personal feelings on this are that we should field a GB team, but only with the proviso that we are allowed to keep our independence in all other tournaments. I don't see why this should be a problem. If it is, then forget it. I'd rather keep the home nations separate than be forced to combine them just for the sake of a tournament which we really aren't that bothered by and would stand no chance of winning anyway.

to be honest, I don't see why football should even be in the olympics to start with.


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