I’m not sure if this has been discussed much on here but what about this Olympic football malarkey? (Not that I'm really that interested in it at all)

I see today that Beckham is wittering on about being captain of the team. As I understand it, it is basically an under 23’s tournament with 3 over 23’s allowed. Why exactly does Beckham seem to think that he has some given right to be involved? On footballing merit alone I can’t see that he has much of a chance. He seems to think it is some sort of Golden Handshake from the FA.

The other issue and more interesting one is the reaction of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish FA’s. I just can’t figure how they have worked out that playing a British U23 team in a home Olympics will give FIFA the excuse to amalgamate the UK’s FA’s.

Surely they would have to tell us that we will have to create a UK league and a UK FA? FIFA have enough problems controlling the FA’s and big clubs without trying to enforce such a massive change all because of a one off novelty under 23’s tournament. And FIFA certainly haven’t said anything about this happening.

I reckon the objections are more likely based on the fact that they’ll be embarrassed by the token selection of one player from their region as they don’t have players good enough to merit selection on ability (apart from perhaps Aaron Ramsey). Can't see any other genuine reason why they'd be so against it.

_{I think the SFA were never going to agree to this from Day 1. Shame really.}