It's about time the provincial sides were dissolved and amalgamated tbh. People drone on about FIFA corruption, but never a peep about the inflated power British football associations wield through collusion within UEFA. They only exist through an accident of history and it's time we stop pretending "nations" that were subsumed centuries ago remain countries.
Speaking as someone who isn't into football at all, that's a stupid suggestion. The rivalry/identity is just too deeply entrenched in the minds of supporters.
That said, I can see the benefit of having a single Great Britain team for the world, but keeping England/Scotland/Wales for smaller competitions, but I assume that would be quite difficult to manage.
>>7293 Countries don't constitute UEFA, football associations do. In any case it's unthinkable and would be wholly supported by FIFA because they detest the English FA and anything even mildly associated with it.
Put simply, there is no!'Britain' in this sense. It also takes away from IFAB which is the legislature of football, constituting the four home nations and four FIFA representatives.
>>7295 Do you even follow football? Have you not read the rules?
Article 5 (paragraph 1) of the 2014 Edition of the UEFA Statutes dictate that "Membership of UEFA is open to national football associations situated in the continent of Europe, based in a country which is recognised by the United Nations as an independent state, and which are responsible for the organisation and implementation of football-related matters in the territory of their country."
Of course there are a few members that managed to slip in before the modernisation of the rules, most of them British in one shape or another.
>>7295 More great points. IFAB should be abolished and absorbed by FIFA. What gives British football more right to govern everybody else in 2015?
Gareth Bale and Scott Brown could walk into any team in the Premier League and Steven Naismith is hardly a slouch in midfield either. I wouldn't look twice at their selection for the England squad. I don't know about NI, though.
>>7300 Bale would have to make way for Rooney or the in-form striker, like Sturridge, Kane or Chat Shit Get Banged, shoved to the left to accommodate Rooney, especially as his form as tailed off since the Real system changed and stopped suiting his style of play.
Only Porridgewog I'd be happy with in the England squad would be Andy Robertson.
>>7298 >based in a country which is recognised by the United Nations as an independent state, and which are responsible for the organisation and implementation of football-related matters in the territory of their country
But the FA meets all of these criteria. It is based in such a country (UK), and England is within its territory. An example of an association that doesn't meet these criteria is the Jersey FA. Jersey is not part of the UK, and therefore the JFA is not based in a recognised country and doesn't administer football in a recognised country.
>>7304 The rule in legal matters is simple - unless specifically defined otherwise, a bit of text means what it says and says what it means. It says "in the territory of their country". Had they meant it to mean the whole territory, it would explicitly say so.
>>7301 Without trying too hard to blow the patriotic trumpet, it's simply because they're not as bent as rest of the footballing executive. The FA holds a decent amount of weight, they opposed Blatter's election and subsequent re-elections and the British press are prone to pointing out things FIFA officials would rather not have pointed out.
>>7298 If it were up to me UEFA and FIFA would be dissolved tomorrow.
As for IFAB, IFAB govern the rules, there's nothing stopping anyone giving them the finger but they'd have to also give the finger to the world cup, et al, which is the step I think is necessary to sort out the state of football.
>What gives British football more right to govern everybody else in 2015?
The fact it's agreed upon. I'm not sure what the year has to do with it.
>>7306 The IFAB has the four home associations and FIFA with four votes. The FA is the important one, and between the four of them can effectively block FIFA if they seek to change anything fundamental. Not only are the FA less bent, they also refuse to be more bent. The special status of the home nations is enshrined in FIFA's statutes, and if they made any attempt to change this, you can bet the power of the IFAB would be leveraged to block anything that FIFA puts before it. This is why the Team GB stuff was mostly scaremongering - other sports have similar arrangements without any issue. Nobody would dare try using the Lions as an excuse to eliminate the home unions from World Rugby.
>>7308 >This is why the Team GB stuff was mostly scaremongering - other sports have similar arrangements without any issue.
The GB shit was blocked by the non-English home nations.
>The FA is the important one
I don't think it counts for shit to be honest, each to their own in IFAB.
