No Road To Rio For Team GB

THIS post may well be unique in the history of this blog, because, what I have to say is: Well done FIFA.

 

I say this after the news the FA has had to abandon plans to enter British Men's and Women's football teams at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, after FIFA's intervention.

 

Sepp Blatter's boys told the chaps at Wembley: "You can only enter teams with the approval of the Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh FAs."

 

That approval was never going to come, at least from Glasgow, so, at a stroke, the FA chaps have been denied their Olympics freebie down Copacabana way.

 

Yeehaw!!!

 

British football's place in the Olympics has always been a bit of a guddle. To be fair to the English, we Scots never really bought-into the idea of playing in the Games. In the old days, up till 1972, when the Games were amateur, the SFA tended to pass the ball to the Scottish Amateur FA, in reality, the Queen's Park committee.

 

They, on more than one occasion, when push came to shove, put the interests of the Spiders before those of the UK. That has to be acknowledged.

 

However, the FA tended to treat the whole footbll issue as being England's baby; well, that's how they treat most football issues in this island.

 

With a bit of give and take on both sides, our best young players, English, Northern irish, Scottish and Welsh, could have benefitted from an excellent competition. They never will, until they sort-out their differences.