Blatter issues Olympic warning

SEPP Blatter, the Fifa president, has conceded for the first time that a unified British team at the 2012 Olympic Games could jeopardise the historic independence of the four home nations in major international football competition.

While the subject of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland providing players for the GB side which will take part in the London games was not on the official agenda at Saturday's meeting of the International Football Association Board at Gleneagles, Blatter emerged from a private briefing with SFA office bearers to support their opposition to having any involvement with an Olympic team.

Previously, the most powerful individual in world football had consistently insisted that the autonomy of the four home nations would not be threatened by a combined GB side, but he has now recognised the increasing opposition to the status of the four home nations led by critics such as Fifa vice-president Jack Warner.

Blatter believes a compromise can be found by fielding an all-English team to represent Great Britain at the 2012 games.

"Looking at the situation of 2012, I have had a discussion with the Scottish FA leadership and they have said they would not play in a combined team. I said that is the best thing for them to do.

"If you start to put together a combined team for the Olympic Games, the question will automatically come up that there are four different associations, so how can they play in one team?

"If this is the case, then why the hell do they have four associations, four votes on the IFAB, and their own permanent vice-presidency of Fifa? This will put into question all the privileges that the British associations were given by the Fifa Congress in 1946.

"There is no reason to change something that has been established for 62 years, but you cannot have your cake and eat it. There is no danger of losing those privileges, so long as you don't overdo it.

"They should choose a solution which will not harm the special privileges they hold and should enter only a team composed of players from England. This will then not provoke a long and endless discussion on the four British associations."

Saturday's IFAB meeting proved a triumph for Uefa president Michel Platini whose proposal to experiment with the use of two more assistant referees, operating behind each goal, was voted through as Fifa decided to step away from the introduction of goalline technology.

Platini's plan was opposed by the SFA, English FA and the Irish FA, but supported by the FA of Wales and the four-strong block vote of Fifa.

Brian Barwick, the FA chief executive, said: "I think goalline technology is now dead in the water and that's a disappointment to us. We respect the democracy of the IFAB, and the feeling was that football is a human game and not a technological one.

"But we had two presentations of goalline technology systems today, one of which seemed to be well on the way to being successful, so it is disappointing that they are not being pursued."

SFA chief executive Gordon Smith's proposals for dealing with simulation were not endorsed by the IFAB, although he was given approval to introduce his own pilot scheme in Scotland.

"Mr Blatter was very complimentary about it," said Smith, "and everyone agrees we should be dealing with simulation in football. It was not pushed through by the board, but it was agreed that it should probably be left to each individual association to see what measures are taken.

"From next season, we will bring in an element of it in Scotland. It is a matter for discussion and argument and now everyone sees it our way. I hope that some of the other associations will come around to it."