New Labour allegedly plans to merge Wales’s national football and rugby teams into new “Great Britain” superteams in the wake of the successes of “Team GB” at the Beijing Olympics, a whistleblower on Gordon Brown’s political staff has revealed.
The whistleblower, believed to be a member of Gordon Brown’s Downing Street staff, who is Welsh, said she felt compelled to speak out in view of the “sheer madness” of policies aimed at creating a “new sense of Britishness” by removing bodies such as the Welsh Rugby Union and the Welsh Football Association by creating Great British teams to replace “the sub-national/regional teams of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland”. These are, the official said, nothing less than “attempts to bolster support for an ailing Labour Party and the Prime Minister’s increasing unpopularity by pursuing a reinvigorated and naked ‘unionist’ agenda,” adding “This is not something I am prepared to support.”
The start of this process is seen as Brown’s demand for a “Great Britain” football team to take part in the 2012 London Olympics, described by Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond as a “spectacular own goal”. “Instead of trying to brow beat the SFA, the IFA and the Football Association of Wales into a single team,” Mr Salmond continued, “Gordon Brown should abandon his campaign which threatens the identity of each of the home associations and their national squads.” There has been no comment so far from ministers in the Welsh Assembly. See here for more on this.
Wales, Scotland and the North of Ireland have already lost swathes of funding for sport and the arts as a result of the budgetary demands of London Olympics, whose facilities are being constructed against a backdrop of thinly disguised organisational chaos and deepening recessionary gloom.
The Government is reportedly putting pressure on football’s governing body, FIFA, to press for one major team to represent Great Britain in future international tournaments, which will mean the demise of independent Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland teams, first in football and then rugby.
If you don’t like what’s being planned then sign the petition … HERE
Update
“It’s great to be flying the Welsh flag on the world stage. My Dad’s born and bred in Wrexham and is Welsh through and through and so am I.” Says Olympic gold winner Tom James. -see article
Update
More evidence has been unearthed – see here
If you don’t like what’s being planned then sign the petition … HERE
Ed.Note: This post is by Cuneglas an occasional contributor to CP. Cuneglas is NOT Clive Betts who posts as Cambriapolitico. CP as stated in our terms and conditions do not necessarily agree with the views and statements expressed by their various contributors (some of whom are as mad as hatters).
| GIVE THIS ITEM A – BLOOD BOIL – RATING (ie. does it make your blood boil when you read this!) |
| [ratings] |
What next? Our National Anthem too?
This whistleblower spoke directly to you Clive? What’s your source?
In the first par this Welsh woman is a member of GB’s political staff (which makes her pretty easy to identify BTW).
By the second par she’s “believed to be” a member of GB’s Downing St staff.
Have you put these allegations to Downing St?
Even Brown at his maddest wouldn’t contemplate axing the 6 nations championship.
This isn’t a credible story unless y0u can substantiate the source.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7580113.stm
This is absolute horseshit from start to finish….unless it’s supposed to be some ‘clever’ parody a la The Onion.
Well done Cynical Dragon! Cynicism becomes you. You may have guessed right. This post is by one of our contributors Cuneglas (not Clive Betts who is the main contributor and posts under the name of cambriapolitico). It appears to be a parody as you say, but one of the functions of unaligned blogs is to see if these kites will fly.
It would be a strange horseshit world indeed if any of it came to pass!
I’ve corrected my blogpost. It’s still a winner though!
“see if these kites will fly”? Perhaps you’d better use a better kites. Ones that get off the ground would help.
The Onion’s funny.
Please click on the bbc.co.uk link that Ifan has given you , its true Salmond is fighting hard to protect the Scottish and Welsh football teams.
Look some patriotic Welshmen who won Gold were flying the flag for Wales.
However, the Australian Daily Telegraph has pointed out that English sportsmen were only responsible for 14 golds, with five coming from Scottish and Welsh athletes – and have highlighted Tom’s comments, as it claims, as proof he is a proud Welshman before a Great Briton.
Speaking after winning in the coxless fours, Tom said: I’m a patriotic Welshman – born in Cardiff and living near Wrexham – and it’s brilliant to put Wales on the map at the Olympics.
http://www.eveningleader.co.uk/news/Wrexham39s-Olympic-gold-medallist-joins.4427776.jp
“Bethan Jenkins // Aug 29, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Please click on the bbc.co.uk link that Ifan has given you , its true Salmond is fighting hard to protect the Scottish and Welsh football teams.”
Bethan, there’s a difference between arguing over a combined team for London 2012 and dissolving the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish FA’s and the the WRU and SRU and pushing FIFA to allow only a joint GB team in future international competitions as this article suggests.
As I said earlier, horseshit from start to finish.
So David its ‘horse shit’ is it – the Mirror today part of the same group as The Wasting Mule has an exclusive “Ferguson to Manage Team GB’ -when FIFA get wind of this the pressure to play as ‘one’ team at the World Cup and the European Championships will be immense.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/2008/08/30/sir-alex-ferguson-agrees-to-manage-team-gb-at-london-2012-115875-20717377/
It’s still horseshit.
You’re bit of tabloid news has nothing to do with the allegations in this piece, that an informant who maybe a Gordo staffer says that there are plans for the GB government to pressure FIFA and other sporting bodies into accepting a GB team in all competitions at the expense of the home nations.
Ferguson taking a GB team to the 2012 Olympics as a one-off is a different (and increasingly more improbable) situation.
I notice the FIFA website records “Other agenda items include Olympic Football Tournaments …” for the executive committee meeting scheduled for 19/20 March 2009 but there’s no record of FIFA’s response to the FAW/SFA/IFA letter.
Have the FA submitted a formal response to to FIFA or does Gerry Sutcliffe declaiming that there WILL be a GB football team in Westminster Hall count as the FA/BOA response?