I really do not understand why Scotland, Wales and Northern Island are so against letting their players play for the GB team at the Olympics. The reason they give is because it will effect there independence as a footballing nation, how is that the case? I have looked at players that could possibly play and there could be a good mix of decent players from each nation, so if they are worried that it will just be full of english players then it is not the case. I think it's about time that we stopped having a GB team altogether at the Olympics and just split up into our separate countries. If they are so worried about their independence as footballing countries why don't they put money into improving their own leagues, Wales can take back Cardiff and Swansea and stop interfering and scrounging off the english leagues. You never know one of them might actually qualify for an international tournament...
Good luck to Swansea in the EWPL this season.As for qualifying for tournaments you obviously are too young to remember the 70's.You lot couldn't couldn't win a watch and you still can't.Best league in the world and perennial quarter finalists.GIRFUY!
I honestly think that England and the other home nations should just pull out of Fifa, and launch "British football" as a breakaway sport, similar to rugby league.
my point is **** Great Britain everyone have their own independent country and government, and see how long they last without living off the English tax payers money. Why should they be able to pick and choose when they want to be part of GB or be independent?
I don't know, but at various points throughout recent history, FIFA has applied (both subtle and not so subtle) pressure on the home nations to cohere as one team. Maybe this has something to do with it? If the home nations club together for the Olympics, the argument might go, then there's no real reason why they shouldn't do so for FIFA regulated events. Whether you care to admit it to yourself or not, English people have precisely zero knowledge about how it feels to lose one's national identity, to have it subsumed by the overwhelming presence of a near neighbour (and no, I’m not blaming the English for this) - although you can hear the angry voices emerging as the European Union chips away at Westminster's sovereignty, right enough. (A side issue: it's painfully ironic that those English people most likely to angrily denounce the transference of powers to the European Union are generally the same sort of people who tell the Scots, for example, to stop whining about powers being held in Westminster. They simply don’t seem to get it - and it’s hard not to hold their political inarticulacy against them.) Anyhoooo….. A side effect of losing one’s national and cultural identity, is that sport tends to assume a greater significance. Rightly or wrongly, this was a chance that many seized upon to express their distinctly Scottish identity (and the same will go for the other teams, I imagine). It mattered to us in a way that you’re simply never going to be able to understand (I hope) - and the thought of having this avenue for expression so easily swept aside is one that many Scots may find abhorrent. You say: “…my point is **** Great Britain everyone have there own independent country and government, and see how long they last without living off the English tax payers money.” I agree with the first part – I’m just as much an English nationalist as I am a Scottish nationalist. The second part seems rather poorly thought-out, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, and I’m never really too wild about these kind of angry expressions, anyway. I’m not sure why we – Scotland, England, Wales - can’t simply part company as good friends, with a little less of the snarling and posturing. Anyway, sorry for going on.
The English living off Scottish oil revenues since the 1970's That aside - to the OP: we know 'Team GB' play at the Olympics, no one here would argue otherwise, apart from a potential boycott, which I doubt will happen: FIFA and IOC are quite far apart on most issues. - So what is your ****ing point, other than to make post ill-judged prejudice ****?
Most of us aren't. It's just the amateur self-serving tits at our FAs who have no other way of making themselves feel important.
Football shouldn't be in the Olympics.....why should team GB split up just because of football and ruin it for all the other sports? Football has it's own events and if its going to cause this much trouble putting in a team and take air time away from other sports then whats the point of having it
You could have simplly said "I really do not understand much". You would have saved us all a lot of bother.
The only thing i would say about the Welsh Scots and NI FAs is that they've bascally come out and said "we do not trust FIFA - we know they said that we can have a GB team with no recriminations but we're not prepared to take that chance". Either that or they're teling the English to eff off and I genuinely do not believe that would be the case as by and large they co-exist relatively well given the histroric rivalries. If they are saying they don't trust FIFA it seems a pretty brave, some would say foolhardy, thing to do - Blatter doesnlt apear to be the forgiving sort.....
