Change my view: England, N.Ireland, Wales & Scotland should merge into a UK team

Jay29 wrote:I'm curious as to why they shouldn't be separate. Like, what issue is there that there's no UK football team?

The English and Scottish FA's pre-date FIFA by decades. England and Scotland were playing international games in the 1870s well before international football became an organised thing.

Maybe if there was a UK FA or something, but that's never been the case. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own FAs and run their own football programmes.

I'm wondering why the FAs matter? Like if Brazil decided "hey we have enough quality players to get 4 teams into the WC, let's split our FA 4ways so we can get 4 teams" would that be alright? Of course not.

The UK is one country, regardless of how its internally organized. You can't blame people for feeling salty that 1 country is allowed to get 4 teams worth of representation. In fact iirc in the Olympics its only the UK, not England + 3.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

Jay29 wrote:I'm curious as to why they shouldn't be separate. Like, what issue is there that there's no UK football team?

The English and Scottish FA's pre-date FIFA by decades. England and Scotland were playing international games in the 1870s well before international football became an organised thing.

Maybe if there was a UK FA or something, but that's never been the case. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own FAs and run their own football programmes.

I'm wondering why the FAs matter? Like if Brazil decided "hey we have enough quality players to get 4 teams into the WC, let's split our FA 4ways so we can get 4 teams" would that be alright? Of course not.

The UK is one country, regardless of how its internally organized. You can't blame people for feeling salty that 1 country is allowed to get 4 teams worth of representation. In fact iirc in the Olympics its only the UK, not England + 3.

Would these theoretically new Brazilian FA's have been around since the mid 1800's? If yes, then by all means have at it. But alas, they would be days old and have zero claim to their own national teams.

If the English and Scottish FAs respectively had popped up 30 years ago then you'd have a point.

I believe Unique was even sorted into Slytherin so yes
Good to know we can naturalise Tom for Italy NT before the birth of UK NT though

But if your answer is "it made sense at the time" that doesn't mean that it makes sense now or that it's fair.

If your argument is "its not countries thst matter, but fifa recognized FAs" then you would have to agree with the Brazilian scenario. Can't have it both ways.

Basically what Tom said.

This isn't a case of "we want our own team, so lets make our own FA". It's "we had our own FA before international football existed, so we should have our team".

Robespierre wrote:I believe Unique was even sorted into Slytherin so yes
Good to know we can naturalise Tom for Italy NT before the birth of UK NT though

From what i've seen on FIFA Pro Clubs Tom would walk into your team tbh.

BarrileteCosmico wrote:But if your answer is "it made sense at the time" that doesn't mean that it makes sense now or that it's fair.

If your argument is "its not countries thst matter, but fifa recognized FAs" then you would have to agree with the Brazilian scenario. Can't have it both ways.

Except my argument isn't 'it made sense at the time' my argument and obviously Jays too is they pre-date FIFA and they never got together a few years ago and decided it'd be a laugh to all have their own seperate teams. It still makes sense, to this very day.


If other countries/states etc feel aggrieved about this. I suggest they go back in time and implement their own football associations 140 years ago and then come back to the table and talk.

Mole knows ffs

I am Del Piero with target man height, Salah pace and the football I.Q of the gods.

Sadly the Salah pace part is purely on FIFA though. More like Tottis LW card from FIFA 16.

Tomwin Lannister wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:But if your answer is "it made sense at the time" that doesn't mean that it makes sense now or that it's fair.

If your argument is "its not countries thst matter, but fifa recognized FAs" then you would have to agree with the Brazilian scenario. Can't have it both ways.

Except my argument isn't 'it made sense at the time' my argument and obviously Jays too is they pre-date FIFA and they never got together a few years ago and decided it'd be a laugh to all have their own seperate teams. It still makes sense, to this very day.


If other countries/states etc feel aggrieved about this. I suggest they go back in time and implement their own football associations 140 years ago and then come back to the table and talk.

Cool then I'm Scottish fan coz your FA is my FA 140 years back.

Forgot to mention Prime Gattuso stamina tbh.

Nishankly wrote:

Tomwin Lannister wrote:

BarrileteCosmico wrote:But if your answer is "it made sense at the time" that doesn't mean that it makes sense now or that it's fair.

If your argument is "its not countries thst matter, but fifa recognized FAs" then you would have to agree with the Brazilian scenario. Can't have it both ways.

Except my argument isn't 'it made sense at the time' my argument and obviously Jays too is they pre-date FIFA and they never got together a few years ago and decided it'd be a laugh to all have their own seperate teams. It still makes sense, to this very day.


If other countries/states etc feel aggrieved about this. I suggest they go back in time and implement their own football associations 140 years ago and then come back to the table and talk.

Cool then I'm Scottish fan coz your FA is my FA 140 years back.

Cool. Although i'd say you're free to pick and choose which national team you support, because fans are free to do as they please. Just like our century and a half FAs are free to put together their own teams to participate in international football tournaments that they comfortably pre-date without being forced to merge with other countries to satisfy half a dozen GL fans.

Will inform my city in India to form seperate national team based on language and culture, get ready for Nishank 97 overall on FIFA soon ffs

I'm not seeing what unfair advantage the UK are getting out of this in the first place.

Yeah, it's multiple teams technically representing one country, but this isn't a united country, contrary to the name. Scots dislike the idea of England being successful as much as the English find amusement in how bad Scotland are.

If Wales or Scotland did well at a tournament, the only people who benefit from that are Wales and Scotland. England get nothing out of this.

This isn't like the Olympics where England can claim a Scottish/Welsh winner's success as their own.

That's even if they qualify. There's one World Cup and zero European Championships between these four teams. The argument that they take up space in qualifying falls down since Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland qualifying for anything is rare.

If the United States of Europe ever happen, should they have only one team too?

Nishankly wrote:Will inform my city in India to form seperate national team based on language and culture, get ready for Nishank 97 overall on FIFA soon ffs

I heard players who play FIFA get their own personal ridiculous cards so i'm going to ask you to be gentle with the rest of the onliny player base and don't give yourself 99 everything.


Don't be that guy.

For me about the 4 points expressed by thread

1 - I don't get it really. It is like saying that Inter and Milan must join in an only Milanese team so as to break Juve egemony ( it'd not be enough though ). I could throw up at the thought this fusion

2 - It is easier to happen the opposite. What about Jugoslavia

3 -  Meh, this is the most understandable, Tom responded correctly for me though but anyway "who cares" really about a UK NT ?
We are giving an utilitarian connotation on it but first of all I believe it'd be a UK NT would be incredibly  sad NT while England, Scotland,Wales, Northen Ireland have their  history , probably who isn't British can't understand this but English/Scottish/Welsh/North Iriish have so passion for this.
Franky I hope to see a day a match as England-Scotland of Euro 96 again. Amazing rivalry and football battle .
Why have we have to renounce this ?

4  The 4th point is interesting because finally England could win something and football coming home ( )

Jay29 wrote:I'm not seeing what unfair advantage the UK are getting out of this in the first place.

Yeah, it's multiple teams technically representing one country, but this isn't a united country, contrary to the name. Scots dislike the idea of England being successful as much as the English find amusement in how bad Scotland are.

If Wales or Scotland did well at a tournament, the only people who benefit from that are Wales and Scotland. England get nothing out of this.

This isn't like the Olympics where England can claim a Scottish/Welsh winner's success as their own.

That's even if they qualify. There's one World Cup and zero European Championships between these four teams. The argument that they take up space in qualifying falls down since Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland qualifying for anything is rare.

This is all true too.

Ironically forcing this change would, on a football level, only improve the chances of every bodies favourite footballing villain winning the World cup, or at the very least becoming an outside shot most of the time.

Tomwin Lannister wrote:

Nishankly wrote:Will inform my city in India to form seperate national team based on language and culture, get ready for Nishank 97 overall on FIFA soon ffs

I heard players who play FIFA get their own personal ridiculous cards so i'm going to ask you to be gentle with the rest of the onliny player base and don't give yourself 99 everything.


Don't be that guy.

That's why I went for 97 ffs I'm a reasonably modest man.

Not a merged NT but I wonder sometimes about a British league.
Would you like the idea to widen league to other British teams?
Simply put, Celtic and Rangers in EPL . ( Hibs walked into league , unstoppable after Scottish Cup 2016 so I suppose no).
Tbf I find sad to think a club as Celtic , potentially top brand and fantastic fanbase , are totally useless in modern football ( unlike of 60s , I know a thing). And destined to be it.

Might as well be already tbh, considering the recent Welsh invasion.

I wouldn't mind it but I guess it depends on the majority of each clubs fan base. Have a referendum

They'd be the ones travelling, and they'd be the ones that especially in current Celtics case go from regular CL appearances and trophies to probably being irrelevant for a decade.

It's not impossible. The English domestic league system already incorporates Welsh clubs who are geographically close to England - Cardiff, Swansea, Wrexham, Newport County, to name a few. This happened in the 1900s and nobody's had an issue with it since (a neat microcosm of this whole UK thing, really).

Logistically it's difficult, though. We could have Celtic and Rangers in the English leagues, but where? They would argue they're Premier League quality, but for me they're Championship teams. But trying telling a Championship team that they have to make way for two new teams. Alternatively, try telling Celtic and Rangers they have to spend 5+ years making their way up the leagues to get where they should be.

Maybe you could just add two new teams to the league and let promotion/relegation sort it out, but it's still tricky.

It's delicate, because somebody would have to make a sacrifice that they shouldn't really have to make

Only way forward would be to grease the palms of a couple of championship clubs I guess


I don't think either of those clubs starting in the championship would be too contentious as if they really are way too good, they'd quickly escape. And even if not, I imagine the championship still has significantly better payouts for the clubs involved? So it might hurt their ego, but they'd be better placed to succeed even if they're stuck in championship limbo for a few years.

Lads a word of advice if you are ever in a pub in England Ireland Scotland or Wales don’t bring up this topic. It will end badly for you

Ofcourse we won't, you think we don't know it's a touchy topic lmao