From BBC site

GB women set Wembley Gold target

UK sport's head of performance believes a British women's football team should win football gold at the 2012 Olympics

Peter Keen says a women's team winning at Wembley is ' one of the ultimate visions of success for British sport '.

Keen wants the football associations of England , Scotland , Ireland and Wales to act soon to make his ambition possible.

There isn't a solution in place at the moment , because we're not really talking about it collectively as a nation , " he told BBC radio 5 live.

No British team has competed in an Olympic finals since the introduction of women's football at the 1996 Atlanta Games , and there will be no British team in Beijing.

Keen fears the women's game will miss a huge opportunity if a team is not formed in the next four years.

" In 2012 somebody is going to win the women's Olympic title in Wembley stadium ". he said.
" Seeing a women's team representing Great Britain win in our national game , in our national stadium - to me , that's where you start this process from. What would it take to do that , and do we want that enough ?

I'd want it for my daughter - she loves football , what an image. How do we bring that about ? I don't know , but a no - compromise winning mindset would find a way to do that , because it matters enough ".

Keen is widely credited with inspiring the renaissance in British cycling , where he previously acted as performance director.

He is now responsible for delivering British success at London 2012 , but the creation of a British women's football team depends on the Football Associations of England , Scotland , Wales and Northern Ireland.

In October 2007 , the chief of the British Olympic Association , Simon Clegg , told the BBC's Inside Sport programme he was determined to field both men's and women's teams for 2012.

But opposition to the move has been strong , with the Welsh , Scottish and Irish associations putting up resistance.

" We would not want to compromise our national identity , " Irish Football Association president Raymond Kennedy told BBC sport last year.

Keen says the responsilbility for overcoming that hurdle and creating a British team lies with the game.

" You'd have to have football find a way to make it work.

" The expertise is in this country - we're the fifth or sixth best nation in the world now. We should be winning that ( gold in 2012 ).

That is a vision of success and if you buy it , you work back from it and say well how are we going to do that .

" We've got four years and a few days. Is that winnable ? Yes. Do we want it ? Yes ".



If Keen can get the other nations to agree then well done to him because he's got a huge task ahead of him. Scotland will never agree to this even if the other two do. As much as I like a GB team in the Olympics I know it will never happen.

I think the home nations should play each other for the right to play in the Olympics. The winner of the group represents their country , ie: England or Scotland etc... This way no loses their identity.

The player's and fans deserve their shot in a massive tournament like this.

I agree there smithy.
England would almost certainly win the knockout, but at least there would be a UK entrant.

The home countries other than England don't want any organisation to find an excuse to get rid of their national identities, so will not want to be part of a UK team.

However, a knockout would effectively spoil any chance that, say, Jayne Ludlow or Julie Fleeting had of competing, and we'd then get it pushed down our throats by the media that England would be putting a team in the Olympics, rather than the UK.

I don't need to say how we Welsh etc would feel about that.