You don't need to search far to fathom either Alex Salmond's foaming at - or the Scottish Football Association's resistance to - the idea of a Great Britain football team at the 2012 Olympics. It is all to do with Scottish identity, Scottish pride (perhaps wounded) and, in the specific case of the SFA, self-preservation.

Let's take the governing body of Scottish football first. Their national team may have been fairly lamentable in recent years but at the SFA they've still been able to wear the blazers, hop aboard lovely foreign flights, and be a part of the greater Fifa family. In short, the SFA is a prestigious little bloke on the world football scene, and proud to be so.

The rumour - I think scurrilous and deeply flawed - is that Team GB in football in 2012 would ruin all of that. It is beside the point that, unless there is a miraculous flowering of young Scottish talent soon, next to no Scots would be good enough to play in the GB team anyway. The SFA could live with that. What it couldn't live with, literally, is being voted out of existence.

This is what nags at the Hampden Park beaks, and what Mr Salmond has leapt upon with relish. What is to stop Fifa, they say, decreeing that we no longer need an SFA - or a Football Association of Wales or a Northern Ireland FA - if there is a GB team at the Olympics? The anxiety is that Fifa, who have long viewed the four home football associations as puffed-up martinets, would finally grab their chance to say: “See! They're at it, these Scottish, Welsh and Irish fat cats! Shut 'em down!”

When such a kerfuffle brews, it rarely takes Mr Salmond long to grab the nearest loudhailer. So there he was again yesterday, rubbishing Gordon Brown's view that, given that Britain is the cradle of football, there should be a British team competing in 2012.

The funny thing is, if I was Mr Salmond, and I wanted an electoral leg-up, then I would egg along Brown's “ludicrous concept” of Scottish footballers playing in the 2012 Olympics. Because it just might be Mr Salmond's best hope of getting independence for Scotland. (Ssshh! Did someone mention independence?)

Just imagine it. Mr Brown gets his way, and a football Team GB competes in London. Fifa rises up in horror and, pushed along by the Africans, Indians and South Americans, closes down the FAs of Scotland, Ireland and Wales.

Why, in such a scenario, Mr Salmond would have his loudhailer to his mouth before the rest of us had started our breakfasts. “Look what London has done to youse!” the SNP leader would bawl. “They've feckin' taken away our national football team! Vote for me, I'll bring it back.” If restoring the Scottish national football team would not be a vote-winner, then what would?

Let's get into more of the politics here. Is Mr Salmond a democrat and a meritocrat? If so, then what does he make of the current absurdity of world football's International Board, an eight-seater Fifa junket, in which Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales have four votes, and the rest of the world - the other 240-plus Fifa members - get the other four votes among them? I mean, we hate this Blighty-like arrogance, don't we? We want rid of these old Raj-like vested interests, am I right?

There's only one problem. The SFA, with its cherished seat, absolutely loves the anachronistic International Board. It is one very good reason alone not to cave in to the Team GB 2012 bandwagon. That's because there is a gravy train currently on the go which the SFA quite enjoys.

It is amazing how politics and politicians manage to crank up the volume whenever sport offers the possibility of popular appeal. There is no doubt that the SFA has an issue to deal with, and it needs to think through its options carefully. But what we can do without in football is blokes like Mr Salmond, giving a distinct impression of being “on the make”, trying to gain political capital out of it.

Chris Hoy, by the way, said it was “brilliant” that he represented GB - as much as Scotland - at the Olympics. Presumably, this was OK, wasn't it?

Times Recommends

• Charles blazes trail as sun king
• Thalidomiders win payout 50 years on
• Libel gag on talk of 'medical hurricane'