Only in Britain

So it would appear that 'GB' will be represented in football at the 2012 Olympics - although it would seem only English players will be competing

And so, a strange scenario has been made even stranger

The England U21 side (women's and men's) will be rebranded until 2012 as 'GB' and be recognised by the IOC to be eligible to play in 2012, while presumably the other three nations continue on playing in the U21 tournaments (2011 to be precise, for which qualification is already underway) despite being an actual part of 'GB', oh and the real England football team will continue as normal...

Crazy, but I can't say I mind - I like having an England team and didn't really want to have to compromise over 2012 just for the sake of it, can you imagine if we had a mixed team and had to include a certain number of players from each nation? Not to mention that doing that in itself would surely still be recognising that there were four nations, but the media furore around who was picked and token players would be unbearable

Truth be told I would rather we just kept the old system going and ignored the Olympics, but alas we're hosting it and can't not be represented in a single sport, even if it is a minor youth event in the football world - personally I think having the four nations compete independently to win the right to enter as GB would be the cleanest way to have done this, as it would have recognised the FIFA situation more clearly, but whatever...

The situation is a pretty difficult one - the football nations will not combine (and rightly so IMO) but short of full political independence we have to be 'team GB' at the Olympics, especially as Mihir Bose points out - "in hockey, curling, table tennis, boxing and badminton one home country representing Britain in the Olympics has long been accepted"

Well unfortunately football is not a minor amateur sport (and yes, Olympic boxing is), and when you consider that virtually all our professional team sports - Football, Rugby, Cricket represent themselves along the home nation lines you have to wonder which side of the argument has more weight - it's very hard to tell and is yet another of those very British curiosities

As always, comments at the bottom

A very confused Tarquin

*There is also a certain Cup final this weekend, I'm not that inspired to be honest, like in every Chelsea game - but I hope Everton win and I expect them to be good for it