Sic a Parcel o Rogues in a Nation

I AM becoming more and more frustrated at the way the furore over the UK's participation in this year's London Olympics refuses to die down. But, I am becoming even-more frustrated at the way football ties its knickers in a twist over this issue.

On the face of it, it is unacceptable that the UK, the host nation, should not be represented in every event at the four-yearly sports fest. That said, the IOC, the body which runs the Games, has become increasingly greedy in the way it expands the Games, without properly managing this expansion.

IF, as we are led to believe, the Olympic Games is the greatest display of sport on the planet, then surely an Olympic gold medal ought to be THE prize in any sport. Take boxing, in an ideal world, the winner of the Super-heavyweight gold medal in the boxing ring would be seen as THE man - so, at least one of the Klitski brothers should be competing, while, if we was serious in wanting to be seen as the best - David Hyde would be fighting for Team GB: ditto Amir Khan.

But, they will not be there. Likewise, the winner of the tennis gold medal would be THE man, it could even be oor ain Andy Murray, only, he'd rather win Wimbledon (as, even more so - would the UK tennis public wish this for him).

Then we come to football. IN an ideal world we would be seeing ALL the top players - Messi, the great Spanish players, the Brazilian superstars etc, playing. But we will not - in its determination to protect its own World Cup as THE football tournament, FIFA - whose membership of the IOC gives Herr Blatter another opportunity to strut his stuff ont he world's sporting stages - deliberately down-grades the Olympic football tournament.

If you win it, great, if not, it's not as if it's the World Cup.

I have nothing against the four Home Nations' FAs using the Olympics as a development tournament, giving vital international experience to our best Under-23 players from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

I can understand the opposition of the three "Celtic" FAs to playing as "Team GB"; they rightly fear for their international independence. I can also understand the (English) FA's determination to have "Team GB" involved. It's England's games after all AND, crucially, the English, being programmed from birth to be unable to differentiate between England and the UK will be convinced, if FIFA ever pushes through a single UK FA, they - THE Football Association - would be that body and they would allow the other three in as subordinates.

Aye Right, as the response to that would be from Glasgow.

So, given that the English have given nothing, particularly any say in the management, I'm against a UK-wide "Team GB", but have nothing against England representing "Team GB".

The SFA, the IFA and the FAW had nothing against this, but, the British Olympic Association, the BOA, had to have a UK-wide team. They, of course have no knowledge of or interest in the possible ramifications of this.

That's that out of the way. What I cannot get my head round is, here we are 190 days from kick-off, and with a football close season taking up quite a few of these days, there is still nothing done about getting a representative team ready.

Warm-up games - no. Have they cut the several hundred players on the long list down to a manageable number? No. With the ROI and England both playing in Euro'2012 at the end of this season, an end-of-season tournament between Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Team GB would I feel, have been interesting.

Finally, there is the sheer hypocrisy of oor ain SFA. They wanted nothing to do with Team GB; they don't want Scottish players to make themselves available for it - BUT - they are quite ready to host games at Hampden. They keep telling us: "We cannot prevent Scottish players from playing for Team GB". They can, if they can be bothered to read the FIFA rules.

That's blatantly two-faced - we still have: sic a parcel o rogues in a nation.

Stewart Regan was widely-quoted today in forecasting a back-lash by the Tartan Army against any Scot who plays for Team GB.

I hope the lads in the TA are just as harsh on the two-faced SFA "blazers", their conduct has been less than exemplary.