Why is there no Team GB football team for men or women?

With the Olympic football under way in Paris and providing early drama, there will be a pang of disappointment that Team GB will not be represented in either the men’s or women’s tournament.

With the exception of London 2012, there has not been a GB men’s team at the Olympic Games since 1960. Having reached the quarter-finals of the tournament in Japan three years ago, the women’s team surprisingly failed to qualify for Paris.

Why is Team GB not playing football in the Olympics?

The short answer is politics. There is a long held fear among the home nations of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland that, should they enter a GB team, it will put their future involvement at international tournaments, as independent nations, at risk.

At the Olympics, which is governed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the independent nations are not recognised and all British athletes compete as part of a collective Great Britain team.

However, for Uefa and Fifa competitions in football, the home nations are all able to compete separately. There is concern that should they enter a GB team for the Olympics, they could be forced to do so for the Euros and World Cup as well, which none of the respective FAs are willing to risk.

It is a real shame as the Team GB football side at the London Olympics attracted a lot of interest and as Olympic football is primarily focused on Under-23s it would be a great way to give international experience to a younger set of players.

The battle with Premier League clubs to release players for a July/August tournament and the political wrangling over how many players from each nation should make up the squad, have probably also put people off the idea.

Why are the Lionesses not playing for Team GB in the Olympics?

The Olympics are a huge part of the history of the women’s game and widely regarded as the second most prestigious tournament you can win behind the World Cup. Introduced to the Olympic schedule back in 1996, football has been seen as a priority competition for all the leading nations since.

This is a legacy of the amateur history of the women’s game - it only turned professional in England in 2018 - and there was huge disappointment when Team GB failed to qualify for Paris given they had fielded a team in two of the last three Olympics.

A consensus was not reached between the home nations for the team to compete at the Rio Games in 2016, but they qualified for the Tokyo tournament as a result of England (the highest ranked of the home nations) reaching the semi-finals of the World Cup in 2019.

However, a change in the qualification rules meant that Uefa turned the Nations League into a qualifying campaign rather than looking at a team’s performance at the World Cup. Under the old rules, England reaching the World Cup final against Spain in Australia last year - therefore confirming their status as one of the two best performing European nations - would have guaranteed Team GB a place.

‌What went wrong for the women’s team in qualifying?

Having narrowly lost the World Cup final back in August last year, there was a post tournament hangover as England struggled to come to terms with missing out on becoming reigning European and world champions.

Rather than play a series of friendlies after the World Cup, Uefa brought in the Nations League tournament to mirror the men’s competition with Olympic qualification the reward for the two finalists.

In short, England did not reach the final, largely as a result of a shock defeat to Belgium back in October. Sarina Wiegman’s side also lost to the Netherlands and despite thrashing Scotland – whose players would also have had a chance to go to the Olympics if England reached the Nations League - England were denied top spot in their group by the Netherlands, who also inflicted a heavy defeat on Belgium in their final group game and they progressed to the semi-finals.

Although a huge disappointment at the time, the rest will probably do the English players some good as they prepare to defend their European crown in Switzerland next year.