I asked this in the Olympic thread, but nobody answered, hoping you could shed some light?
How come the Welsh/Scottish are so against the gb footy team but the Scottish and Welsh athletes are ok to represent gb?
As I said in the other thread it isn't a wind up, I genuinely don't know and want to?
Its all down to politics.
The Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish FA's were against the formation of a GB team because they feel that it sets a dangerous precedent that threatens their existence within FIFA. The three associations released a joint statement stating as such and wanted to ban their players from taking part, but were told it would be a restriction of trade had they done so.
Mixed messages over the years from FIFA doesn't help.
It is understood that several high-profile members of FIFA's executive committee, both past and present, wanted to abolish the home nations' seperate associations and enforce a UK national association. The Uruguayan FA questioned this in the 80's and several high-profile members of the FIFA executive committee have raised the question. Jack Warner was certainly one of them before his own downfall, and the likes of Teixeira and Grondona have been vocal on it. It also doesn't help when Sepp Blatter changes tack every so often with his contradictory comments, first he says he's against the idea, then says he is for, then goes on about the special statutes that the home nations have within the governing body for pulling them out of the financial shit in the 1940's. A lot of opposition to the home nations' own seperate statutes is due to their power in IFAB, who make up the laws of the game, with each home nation having one vote each with FIFA having 4 votes. Some FIFA bigwigs want to scrap IFAB, especially that Zwanziger bloke.
However the English FA have ridden roughshod on the whole thing, not just the way they have said they have the right to select players for this Olympic team (notably the so-called historical agreement between the BOA/FA and the other three, a complete fabrication), but various other past factors too, not just the professional/amateur distinction abolition, but they also in effect cancelled the old British International Championship by rejecting sponsorship without the other three associations' consent and thus losing out on vital finances (especially the FAW, who didn't have a pot to piss in in the 80's). They also know that if a UK-wide football association was enforced by a FIFA statute, they would assume control and relegate the other three to "parish council" like status, like having the power of a local football association.
Little wonder the English FA have been rather smug about a GB team, it's like this idea would answer their age old "who'll play left wing" problem. They must be laughing right now that they finally had an opportunity to call up Ryan Giggs for an international.
Not to mention the misconception amongst foreign people (and some English) that England and Great Britain mean the same thing, which is something that angers people from the other three countries. As was noticed during broadcasting of the Olympic football tournament, the amount of media people, including from the BBC, referring to the GB football team as "England" happened quite a lot.
In other sports the representation thing hasn't been a major issue (only the anthem bit has been making the news with Daily Mail readers), mainly down to most of the team sports having had a UK-wide team since the beginning. Basketball was an exception as the three home nations (NI were part of an all-Ireland federation as far as I'm aware) "merged" to form a UK association to be more competitive in Olympic and Eurobasket level, but I understand the Welsh basketball federation has left due to internal politics. Basketball here has typically been a "minority" sport and far from enjoys the same level of exposure as it does elsewhere.