A UK football team? Another Brown attempt to ’save’ the Union?
Posted on Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 9:16pm
3 responses
I’m back from a week’s break. I had a relaxing time. It was good to come back and find out that I was number 8 of Iain Dale’s top 40 Welsh blogs! Thanks to all those who voted. As Iain Dale says on his blog, the Plaid/Nationalist bloggers did well. Let’s keep it up, I say.
While I’ve been away the World seems to have gone Olympics mad. I did watch a quite a bit of the coverage on Eurosport, and watched the welcoming home of the British team by a desperate Gordon Brown who is blatantly trying to sell his Britishness obsession to the ‘Nation’ via the Olympic squad.
Obviously I think the Welsh sportswomen and men did excellently, but I am equally as dubious as Alex Salmond about the prospect of a GB football team for London 2012. This could well threaten the Welsh FA, and the president of FIFA, Sepp Blatter has on more than one occasion said that if the UK fields a team at the Olympics, then football associations across the world will ask why there cannot be a single team for the UK at all competitions. It seems to me that our strong Welsh football tradition will be under threat if Gordon Brown gets his way, and pushes forward with this idea of a UK football team.
Brown should try and convince us that Welsh people and communities will truly benefit from the Olympics in four years time as opposed to following through with ideas such as this.
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Dwi nol ar ol wythnos o wyliau. Nes i gael amser i ymlacio. Odd e’n dda i ddod nol i ddarganfod fy mod i wedi dod yn 8fed ar 40 blog gorau Iain Dale. Diolch i bawb a bleidleisiodd. Fel mae Iain Dale yn dweud ar ei blog, mae’r blogwyr Cenedlaetholgar/Plaid wedi gwneud yn dda y tro ‘ma. Dalier ati, ddweda i.
Tra rwyf wedi bod i ffwrdd, mae’ r byd wedi datblygu obsesiwn gyda’r gemau Olympaidd. Fe wnes i wylio rhai o’r digwyddiadau ar Eurosport, a’rr rhaglen yn croesawu’r ser yn ol i’r wlad. Roedd Gordon Brown yn ceisio elwa o’r sefyllfa yn wleidyddol drwy wthio ei obsesiwn gyda Prydeindog ar y ‘Genedl’ drwy tim Olympaidd y Deyrnas Unedig.
Yn amlwg rwy’n meddwl bod y tim Olympaidd, yn enwedig y rhai o Gymru, wedi gwneud yn wych eleni, ond rwyf i yr un mor amheus ag Alex Salmond o’r cysyniad o gael tim pel droed y Deyrnas Unedig ar gyfer y gemau yn Llundain yn 2012. Fe all hwn bod yn fygythiad i’r FA cymraeg, ac mae Llywydd FIFA, Sepp Blatter wedi dweud ar nifer o adegau os bod yna tim pel droed y DU, yna fe fydd clybiau pel droed ar draws y byd yn cwestiynnu pam na ellir cael un tim yn unig gan y DU mewn cystadleuathau eraill. Mae’n rhagweld i mi bod Gordon Brown am danseilio traddodiad cryf pel droed Cymru drwy wthio am dim Prydain yn y gemau nesaf.
Dylai Gordon Brown ceisio perswadio ni y bydd Cymru, a chymunedau Cymru wir yn buddio o’r gemau Olympaidd mewn pedair mlynedd yn lle gwthio ‘mlaen a syniadau fel hwn.
A single team for the UK at all football competitions, seems a good idea as the four home teams do so poorly on their own, a little like Aesop’s fable, “The Bundle of Sticks”.
[...] a footbal team for the 2012 olympics shows how out of touch he is with public opinion. As Plaid AM, Bethen Jenkins has pointed out, “This could well threaten the Welsh FA, and the president of FIFA, Sepp [...]
Broadcasters like BBC Five Live – “The UK’s home of live news and live sport” – already clearly link Team GB (Olympics) to the England football team.
Soon after the Olympics their breakfast show carried a feature as to whether the success of Team GB would rub off on “our footballers”.
Although England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales were all playing friendly matches that night it was clear that the discussion was about the England team: the man brought on to discuss the issue was Sir Trevor Brooking, the former England player and the English FA’s director of football development.
There was no mention of the other nations – this despite the fact that Wales’ friendly with Georgia had a very interesting news story behind it: the Georgian team’s journey from its troubled homeland to the match in Swansea.
This pattern of coverage is followed every time the four “home” nations play on the same day. All four teams were playing on Saturday but in the radio trails for the coverage only Fabio Capello’s voice was heard.
On Wednesday, when all four nations play again, you can bet Nicole Cooke’s Olympic gold on the fact that all the discussion on the breakfast show will be about England’s game with Croatia.
By the way, in 2012, most football fans will be more concerned as to whether their nation has reached the European Championships that summer than whether they have players in the Olympic squad.