David Taylor warns Team GB could spell end for Scotland
Graham Spiers August 29,
2008
David Taylor, the Uefa chief executive and former head of the SFA, last night waded in to the debate about a GB football team at the 2012 Olympics, claiming that such a move could see Scotland “disappear off the international stage”.
Taylor held a similarly robust view during his tenure at Hampden Park, where he repeatedly quashed any moves to encourage a Team GB in football. Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, sparked the debate earlier this week, by urging the home nations to form a team in time for the London Olympics in four years’ time.
Such a move, though, is still being resisted by the SFA, which would view it as an encouragement by FIFA to subsume the SFA, along with the Welsh and Northern Irish associations, within a Football Association of Great Britain.
“It is the quickest way for Scotland to disappear off the international stage,” Taylor said in Monaco last night. “When I was in Scotland and chief executive of the SFA, we had a clear and firm position, and I understand that that is still the position - that Scotland should not take part in an Olympic GB team. It is about the identity of the [individual] countries and it is a matter for the football associations.”
Taylor has remained wary of assurances from Fifa that Scotland’s identity would not be compromised. In Africa, India and South America there is well-known resentment of the special privileges that the British nations enjoy in world football.
“Fifa is comprised of 208 countries and we have had situations in the past when the privileges of the British associations, one of which is to compete separately in international football tournaments, has come under attack,” Taylor said. “People like to claim that the four home FAs are safe, but what I would say is that it’s difficult to see what guarantees can be given.”
Sir Craig Reedie, the Scot who is a part of the Organising Committee for the 2012 Olympics, has described the fears of the SFA as “groundless”.
See also
Scotland Squad Announced
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