Debate - World footy rankings 2008 - Peace Team, Great Britain and Catalonia

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Debate - World footy rankings 2008 - Peace Team, Great Britain and Catalonia

Authored by: Aaron Richard
on Thursday, December 11 2008 @ 01:41 pm ACDT

"Ireland" at the IC has included players from both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is actually part of the UK.

"Great Britain" is not a country, it's the island made up of Scotland, Wales and England. The UK is the name of the nation to which they belong, this being Great Britain plus Northern Ireland.

Some sports organisations split them up (rugby, soccer). Some don't (the Olympics). In cricket Scotland is separate, but Wales is considered part of England. The Irish cricket and rugby teams cover the whole island.

There is an organisation called the VIVA World Cup who organise a soccer "world cup" for unrecognised/non-sovereign nations such as Tibet, Lappland, Greenland, the Basque Country, Catalonia etc, but FIFA aren't likely to recognise any of them any time soon unless they're an independent country.

If I remember correctly in Lacrosse the Iroquois indians compete as a separate nation to Canada and the US.

Debate - World footy rankings 2008 - Peace Team, Great Britain and Catalonia

Authored by: Brett Northey
on Thursday, December 11 2008 @ 10:13 pm ACDT

I'm leaning towards ranking GB as one team since that's what they compete as at the International Cups at this stage (England, Wales, Scotland combined). I agree that if it were purely European rankings then worth considering the split up - and at this stage rank England then Wales then Scotland. I don't favour splitting them on paper for world rankings just to boost numbers.

Spain/Catalonia - still a very tough call.

I favour including the Peace Team in 2008 rankings based on their attendance at IC08 - 5 matches plus warm up matches as well. Otherwise there would be no way to judge separate Israel and Palestine teams, and as mentioned, not clear either could field a full side by themselves. Whether they would rank in 2009 would be dependent on them playing further games.

In response to Munro Mick's query on Nauru, don't know about their progress so far, they definitely had solid plans though. Will try to get our Oceania writer Fiona onto it.

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

Debate - World footy rankings 2008 - Peace Team, Great Britain and Catalonia

Authored by: Brett Northey
on Sunday, December 14 2008 @ 11:34 pm ACDT

Re Spain and Catalonia. If we assume Madrid is barely active and didn't compete as Spain in 2008, then we can't realistically rank them unless we consider the Catalonians. And if we assume they would not compete as Spain, as indeed they competed as Catalonia at the EU Cup, then I don't think we should consider them in terms of ranking Spain.

So that just leaves the question of whether to rank Catalonia as an entity. Are we ranking countries only? No, because we'll probably include the Israel-Palestine Peace Team, and Great Britain. But I'm more comfortable ranking conglomerate teams, i.e. made up of a wider area, than a sub-area.

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

Debate - World footy rankings 2008 - Peace Team, Great Britain and Catalonia

Authored by: Troy Thompson
on Sunday, December 21 2008 @ 07:55 am ACDT

Looks like things in soccer are not as simple as all competing separately either - looking like they will compete as Britain in the next Olympics.

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

Debate - World footy rankings 2008 - Peace Team, Great Britain and Catalonia

Authored by: Aaron Richard
on Sunday, December 21 2008 @ 02:05 pm ACDT

Maybe the most telling part of that is that there has been no British
representation in Olympic soccer in almost 50 years, as the individual "home
nations" (particularly the Scottish FA) were concerned it would jeopardise their
future as individual sides in international soccer.

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Brett Northey - Co-founder and Chief Editor of WFN

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