The British Olympic Association (BOA) angered Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales on Tuesday by trumpeting an “historic agreement” for Britain to field a united soccer team at next year’s London Games after a 52-year absence.
The three home associations, determined to safeguard their own national identities in world soccer, issued a joint statement rejecting what the BOA had hours earlier called a “landmark” announcement.
In it, they repeated a collective opposition to their players joining any Team GB (Great Britain).
“We cannot support nor formally endorse the approach that has been proposed by the Football Association,” the joint statement said.
“We have stressed this in communications to them and are disappointed that this has been ignored in the media release,” it said. “No discussions took place with any of us, far less historic agreement been reached, prior to the statement from the BOA being released.”
The BOA, the national Olympic Committee for Britain and Northern Ireland, had said in its statement that men’s and women’s soccer teams would be selected and managed by the English FA.
“Players from England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and other territories which fall under the BOA’s remit as an NOC [-National Olympic Committee], who meet the approved competitive standard will be eligible for consideration and selection,” it added.
A spokesman for the Welsh FA said separately that the BOA statement appeared to be “just a rehashing of old news and bits and pieces” and came “completely out of the blue.”
“There is no new agreement signed or any deals reached,” Ceri Stennett said. “The status quo remains the same.”
The debate over the participation of players from Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland in a British team has simmered since the Games were awarded to London in 2005.
The three countries compete with their own teams at international level, but cannot at the Olympics, where only Britain is represented.
The three associations fear they will lose their independent status within soccer’s world governing body FIFA if they allow their players to take part, despite their membership being enshrined in FIFA’s statutes.
The BOA said the FA had consulted with the Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland associations to develop the selection criteria and timeline.
“It has been a long, six-year journey to get to this point, with very real considerations from the Home Nations that first had to be recognized, respected and resolved,” BOA chief executive Andy Hunt said.
“We absolutely respect the participation of the Home Nations as individual nations at all other football events,” he added. “I want to express my appreciation to all four Football Associations for their recognition of just how meaningful it will be for Team GB to compete in football in London 2012.”
Scottish FA chief executive Stewart Regan suggested in an interview on the SFA Web site on Monday that the BOA’s desire to present a united team might have more to do with selling tickets.
The second round of British ticket sales for London 2012 starts tomorrow, with 1.7 million of the remaining 2.3 million tickets on offer being for the men’s and women’s soccer tournaments.
Some of those matches will be held in Cardiff and Glasgow, where sales have reportedly been slow given the likely absence of home-grown players.
“I guess Andy [Hunt] is under a great deal of pressure from the London Olympic Games Organising Committee and the IOC to get tickets on sale for the football events,” Regan said.
Britain last competed with a men’s soccer team at Rome in 1960 and won gold medals in 1900, 1908 and 1912. A British women’s team has never taken part in an Olympic soccer tournament.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but