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Sport
Steven Chicken

Team GB at the 2028 Olympics: Stance clear on UK men's football team competing in Los Angeles

Team GB in action at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Chances of Team GB entering a men's side for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles look remote after Wales issued a response to a renewed push for them to do so.

The Home Nations have historically opposed any talk of reviving a combined team made up of players from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales at the Olympics, but made an exception in 2012 in light of the UK acting as hosts.

The fear in the past was that sending players to represent Team GB might jeopardise the four country's standing as separate and independent entities in FIFA's eyes, as it might open up a debate along the lines of 'how come they're one country in this competition but four in all the others?'.

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England's FA were open to the idea of keeping a men's footballing Team GB going after 2012, but received a furious response from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales when they wrote to ask if they fancied it in 2015.

Team GB did however enter women's teams for the delayed 2020 Olympics in Tokyo - where they reached the quarter-finals - and this year's edition in Paris, where an agreement was reached for England represented the UK in qualifying only for them to fail to go through.

The British Olympic Association have now expressed a desire for Team GB to enter both men's and women's teams for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, but again the response from the men's football authorities has been less than enthusiastic.

Team GB have entered women's teams but not men's teams for the past two Olympics (Image credit: Getty Images)

FA of Wales chief exec Noel Mooney told the BBC: "We've not heard anything directly ourselves about this Team GB concept and we've never discussed it here.

"We're a football nation. We're going to tournaments now regularly. We expect to go to tournaments andour focus is very much here on Wales playing at tournaments. That's our focus.

"I've heard nothing about it except what I've heard in the media. We've not discussed it here but, there is a discussion, our stance very much is that we focus on our national team playing out in the world."

The Northern Irish and Scottish authorities have also been reported to maintained an unchanged stance on the matter.

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