Will there be a “Team GB” at the 2024 Olympics? The British federations have entrusted the chances of qualification to the England team, but the reigning European champions are in an unfortunate position before a final stretch strewn with pitfalls.
For women, the ticket to Paris goes through the new Nations League and its final tournament which will pit, at the end of February 2024, the four European elite teams having finished at the top of their group. However, the English (6 points) only appear in third place behind Belgium (7 pts) and the Netherlands (9 pts) after two defeats in four matches. To hope to finish at the top of the group, they must now beat at least the Dutch on Friday in London, then the Scots (1 pt) on Tuesday in Glasgow.
The adventure, already complicated, takes a Kafkaesque turn with this sororicidal confrontation at Hampden Park. In the event of victory, in fact, Scotland could eliminate Great Britain from the race for Olympic qualification, even though some of its players can claim to join “Team GB” in France. This is the case, for example, of Erin Cuthbert, a 25-year-old Scottish midfielder, partner at Chelsea of many English internationals such as Lauren James or Fran Kirby.
The situation is not new but this time it appears more frontal than during the 2019 World Cup, where England and Scotland faced each other in the group stage. This tournament allowed the three best European nations to obtain a ticket to Tokyo. This had already given rise to a funny situation: the Scottish Kim Little had launched her World Cup with a 2-1 defeat against the future English semi-finalists, with whom she played in the Olympic Games in Japan two years later in within “Team GB”.
Conversely, her compatriot Julie Fleeting, holder of the national team goals record, had refused ten years earlier to wear the British jersey for the 2012 Olympic Games in London: “I am above all a Scottish international”, no question of “endanger” that, she had pleaded. Like her father Jim Fleeting, leader of the Scottish Football Association, the Arsenal striker feared that FIFA would ultimately impose a definitive merger on the four member federations of “Team GB” (English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish). .
The latter also fear losing the seat they have within the International Football Association Board (IFAB), guardian of the laws of the game.
Before each Olympics, the federations concerned therefore meet to try to find an agreement, without always succeeding. For example, there was no British team in the women’s tournament in 2016, despite England qualifying for third place at the 2015 World Cup. Scotland, in particular, had fulminated against a total lack of “transparency” on the part of the English federation (FA), accused of having wanted to set up a British team without consulting its colleagues.
Unity was achieved with difficulty in 2012 for the Olympic Games at home, solely on the basis of a “one-shot”, that is to say an alliance a priori with no future. A men’s team, automatically qualified as host country, had even participated in the Olympic adventure for the first time since 1960. In 2024, the British banner will fly in Paris if the English finish first in their group then win their Nations League semi-final at the end of February.
However, there will be no men’s team, that’s a certainty. The English Hopes nevertheless obtained qualification by winning the Under-21 Euro last summer with Levi Colwill, Anthony Gordon and Cole Palmer, but no federal agreement was found.
