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by American-In-Training on January 9th, 2007

American-In-Training

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British sports - why do British athletes compete under the Great Britain label internationally, yet in other sports, like soccer, rugby, cricket, etc., the teams are organised under the individual countries of Great Britain?

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  • by Captain Birdseye on January 29th, 2007

    Captain Birdseye

    It depends on wether the world governing body of a sport recognises the home nations, or recognises the UK as a single country. FIFA, (the football guys) recognise 4 seperate nations, as they are registered with FIFA as such.

    In athletics, Great Britain is registered with the IOC and is recognised as such. Consequently, there is no UK football team playing at the Olympics. The same pettern pretty much follows for all other sports, but if anyone can tell me otherwise, i'd love to hear it.

    There are times when the home nations put their differences aside and gang up to take on the world, such as the British Lions Rugby Union team, who make an almost annual pilgrimage to somewhere in the world, just to prove the Brits are best at rugby. Although they rae not an 'official' team, just a touring side.

    There is also the consideration that the countries are split up sometimes because some of the host nations do not play a particular sport. For example, there is a Great Britain Rugby League team, but that is more to do with the fact that by and large, Rugby League is not played in Scotland, Wales or Ireland, they stick to Rugby Union mostly.

    On the flip side, there is Cricket, where Scotland, Wales and Ireland don't play much either, but England has reserved the right to call the team England, even though Scottish players have played for the England side in the past, due to Scotland not having a Test Cricket team.

    As you can see, there are reasons why it happens, but I think the biggest reason is national pride. Scotsmen (me), Welshmen, Irishmen and Englishmen are very different people who are all very proud of their individual identities and wish to be seen as such.

    Comments

    • Thank you for your answer. Another item ticked off my life-long "To find out about" list.

      American-In-Training

      by American-In-Training on February 1st, 2007

    • The four nations DO compete seperately in athletics at the Commonwealth Games, just not the Olympics.
      The British Lions regularly get thrashed by Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. They haven't been the best at rugby for quite a while.
      Ireland are finding out they CAN play cricket, and quite well. They beat England in the World Cup last week!

      Slartibartfast

      by Slartibartfast on March 10th, 2011

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