And the Global Sporting Order Changes...

[Ray de Galles]

And the Global Sporting Order Changes...

Reed John wrote:

All countries are artificial.

Which is why I was careful to add the qualifier "football entity".

I don't know why Wales doesn't have its own cricket federation. Perhaps you know the history.

I can't say I really do and why, unique in sport as far as I'm aware, ENGLAND _{and Wales} exists as a sporting entity.

[Duncan Gardner]

And the Global Sporting Order Changes...

Thanks Reed. I may have gone in a little too aggressively there, apologies

Answering your points briefly,

1 I accept the Olympics have helped grow interest in the Women' game, including in Britain. I'm not going to agree that the European Championships are somehow separate from the international stage. Scotland have invested a lot in the game and get respectable crowds at home (comparable to some SPL teams, I think).

2 I mention the bickering in Ireland largely because of Pat Hickey's recent arrest in Brazil. Hickey is well known in Ireland as a sports (machine) politician for over 30 years. NI fans don't like the way he has tried to exclude all local competitors from the British team (he has also tried to force them not to use NI in the longer name). But you're right generally, sports politics can be arcane

3 Team GB's need (from their/ your POV) is not to call FIFA's bluff, but to sell something to NI/S/W, as de Galles put it. But there's nothing to sell that we want to buy

4 I take your point about TV audiences. That for the Womens' Euros is potentially large even if largely confined to Europe and as less a 'brand' than the Olympics. See point 1 above

5 On the food chain point, I meant that in the game generally, and historically, Germany are just better than England/ Britain. The latter's absence from Olympia only partly explains that

6 I actually was part of a large crowd of Cornwall football fans at Wembley stadium some years ago. Their team Truro City won the FA Vase, a national competition for semi-pro teams

7 On your parallel constructions point (a fair one), I accept that I invite the charge of arrogance and worse I will defend against the whining child charge though. As I said, I've no real grip with England's women footballers (or their men, in the very unlikelihood that they qualify) playing in Tokyo 2020 and beyond

[Reed John]

And the Global Sporting Order Changes...

1. Not separate, but from the players' perspective, the Euros are not enough to replace the potential exposure and earnings potential of playing in the Olympics. For women, they need to be on TV with their national sides as often as they can. Most men good enough to be internationals make enough for their teams that they can afford not to be internationals.

2 I thought Hickey was from ROI.

3 Yeah, in order to get the smaller countries on board with the Team GB concept, the BOA would have to give them something to make it worth their while - development money, assorted promises in writing, quotas on who is in the team. Of course, with the men, there's no guarantee they'd make the field anyway. The women would be more of a lock, but not 100%

4 I'm sure the women's Euros will grow. But, as I said, the women need all the tournaments they can get.

5 I just meant that English women's football still has room for growth. But I guess that's true everywhere anyway.

6 Truro City's kits are outstanding.
http://www.trurocityfc.net/shop/?p=168630

7 Fair enough. Cheers.

[Duncan Gardner]

And the Global Sporting Order Changes...

Re my (2) above, Hickey is from RoI. He has tried to dictate both to NI competitors who want to represent Britain (for example this month, three rowers and four hockey players were in Rio), and to the British Olympic set-up generally, re their long name. So up here we mainly think of him as an annoying twat. Our Southern friends have long suspected him of criminality so last week's events may not have the greatest surprise.

There is a lot of support for Team GB's attitude to the Olympic football, and not just in England. For a vox pop in Glasgow, Cardiff or Belfast they won't ask fans in a stadium about risking their team, but rather random shoppers if they like the idea of Bale or whoever getting an Olympic medal.

But the latter group won't do anything to achieve that, of course.

PS I assume you aren't seriously suggesting that any Team GB should hav a quota of two Scots, an Ulsterman plus somewhere in between from Wales?

[Reed John]

And the Global Sporting Order Changes...

PS I assume you aren't seriously suggesting that any Team GB should hav a quota of two Scots, an Ulsterman plus somewhere in between from Wales?

I'm not saying they should, but that might be one way to get the smaller countries to go along with it. But it would have to be a secret quota that everyone would have to deny existed. I didn't say it was a good idea. Jut an idea they could try.

I suspect the only way Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales would go along with it would be if there were some huge transfer of tax-free cash put into the right bank accounts. I don't think it's worth it to anyone to spend that much money.

I read recently that George Best wanted there to be a united Ireland team. I don't know if that could ever happen.

Gareth Bale is a good athlete. If he wants a medal he could try a different sport. Like bobsled.

[Duncan Gardner]

And the Global Sporting Order Changes...

Reed John wrote: I read recently that George Best wanted there to be a united Ireland team. I don't know if that could ever happen

There is already a united Ireland team (ie open to and including players from both parts of the island, and beyond, the latter qualifying through family links*). It existed in this form during and before Best's playing career.

What Best and those who think like him actually want(ed) was the separate NI team to cease to exist. Obviously they can do one on that suggestion

* see my occasional reminder that 40% of the RoI squad at Euro 2016 had never lived in the country

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

And the Global Sporting Order Changes...

Glamorgan (always the strongest of the Welsh counties) fought long and hard for inclusion as a first-class county in their own right, and have since won several championships and matches against touring sides. Scotland and Ireland always competed in things like the Benson and Hedges Cup on a par with the English first-class counties, and now compete as Associate members in their own right in international cricket; for Glamorgan to do the same as "Wales" would seem a simple choice to give up their first-class English county status and go for it. But I think the sticking point is that Glamorgan CCC have no intention of doing so.

[Ray de Galles]

And the Global Sporting Order Changes...

I don't believe that would have to be the case. I'm pretty sure that Glamorgan's status could be preserved in the same way that the Welsh football clubs' membership of the English leagues is.

They'd lose England tests, of course, but given they have to go cap-in-hand for money from the Welsh government to put them on that's no bad thing. I always feel slightly patronised when England play in Wales, Cardiff is treated as no more than a novelty temporary home - like Wembley for the NFL.

If it did come down to a straight choice between a Welsh national side or Glamorgan continuing as an "English" county then it would he a simple choice in the former's favour for me (though I realise I am not really that much a stakeholder in Glamorgan).

.

[Ray de Galles]

And the Global Sporting Order Changes...

And, of course, Wales does have a long history of competing as a national side.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

And the Global Sporting Order Changes...

Talking of apparently idiosyncratic supranational sides in criket, the West Indies was - albeit briefly - a real, political thing, not just a sporting union, about the time they started playing tests.

[Reed John]

And the Global Sporting Order Changes...

There is already a united Ireland team (ie open to and including players from both parts of the island, and beyond, the latter qualifying through family links*). It existed in this form during and before Best's playing career.

I was going to mention that I was under the impression that it was pretty easy to qualify as Irish for footballing purposes, but I wasn't sure exactly what the rules are and didn't want to overstate it. That's interesting.

But I imagine that, at least hypothetically, it would be easy for a lot of NI players to qualify as Scottish or English due to family connections. Not sure if Best simply couldn't or didn't want to.

They'd lose England tests, of course, but given they have to go cap-in-hand for money from the Welsh government to put them on that's no bad thing. I always feel slightly patronised when England play in Wales, Cardiff is treated as no more than a novelty temporary home - like Wembley for the NFL.

Apparently, the NFL is dead-fucking-serious about putting a team in London. At the very least, they want to expand the number of games there because it allows them to put those games on TV on Sunday morning, so that Sunday will now have football on TV from dawn to midnight. The parallels to late Rome, etc.