Team GB: Any Place At The Games?

Something very weird happened at the Football Business Offices last week.

Something so odd, so utterly bemusing and strange that I didn’t quite understand the magnitude of what had happened until about an hour later.

Even then I tried to deny it, but it is inescapable.

And it is this:

Arsene Wenger said something and I thought: “he’s got a point.” In fact, I didn’t just think “he’s got a point” I thought, “yes, you know, what Arsene said is right.”

This isn’t a trivial matter as far as I am concerned. Agreeing with Mr Wenger isn’t something I do lightly, it isn’t something I like doing and it is something I hope I don’t do again.

But last week when the Arsenal boss said about Olympic Football: “it’s not a real tournament.” I thought to myself ‘he’s correct.’

The reason for the comments to come out last week, you suspect was that last week saw the announcement of the Coaches for the 2012 football tournament. Stuart Pearce will lead the male team, with Hope Powell at the helm of the ladies side.

It’s a job that – for Pearce – appears fraught with problems. The Scottish, Irish and Welsh FA’s don’t want their players selected for any “Team GB” for fear that any moves to do that could see their autonomy within FIFA eroded, so it might be that Team GB is effectively Team England – although Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey have declared their hope to play.

And it is the latter that has vexed Arsene. He doesn’t want his players burnt out in what he considers a pointless competition. And, although I do not share the cynicism of a lot of the country for the event and am tremendously looking forward to it, I agree with the Arsenal boss: football has no place there.

In fact, I don’t recall ever watching an Olympic Football match if I am honest, and I am sure I am not the only one.

Football – or for that matter tennis – have no business being in the games (tennis is different matter – it shouldn’t exist full stop). I remember seeing the eminent cultural Professor Ellis Cashmore say that “any sport for which the Olympics wasn’t the pinnacle” shouldn’t be at the competed for at the Games, and its something that makes sense. Are we to believe that Gareth Bale grew up dreaming of the chance to play for Team GB when he was a boy in Cardiff, or did he want to win the Premier League, Champions League or the World Cup for Wales?

Therein, surely is the difference. Usain Bolt would have dreamed of winning Olympic Gold, so do amateur boxers, cyclists, rowers, swimmers and countless other sports men and women. That’s why those sports belong to the gold medallists and football doesn’t.

Team GB must complete of course. Hopefully it will have players from all four Home Nations in as it should, but whether the sport in general should be there is an entirely different matter.

The rest of what Wenger said was:  “For me, the Olympics is for track and field, basically.”

And, as someone who loves the idea of watching the Olympic boxing tournament, or minority sports like Weightlifting I profoundly disagree with that premise.

Disagreeing with Arsene Wenger. My world makes sense again.