The Scot who sits on the International Olympic Committee yesterday backed a Great Britain Olympic football team and dismissed fears that it could threaten the future of the Scottish international side as “groundless”.

Sir Craig Reedie's intervention came as the row continued over Gordon Brown's wish to see a UK football team at the London 2012 Games. The Prime Minister is even said to have approached Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United manager, to take charge of such a team.

Mr Brown succeeded in infuriating not only opponents such as Alex Salmond, the Nationalist First Minister, but he also annoyed Labour colleagues in Scotland.

However, Mr Brown was supported by Sir Craig, a former chairman of the British Olympic Association and a key figure in securing the 2012 Games.

“Of course, there should be a British team. The fears of the Scots, the Welsh and the Northern Irish of losing their independence are in my view groundless,” Sir Craig said. “They should simply join a British team. There will be a UK football team. We have the most magnificent football footprint ... better than any other Olympic country.”

The major stumbling block to a UK Olympic football team has been the perception that football's governing bodies Fifa and Uefa would insist that the same arrangement should apply for the World Cup and European Championships, thus ensuring that Scotland would not be able to compete as a separate country.

The SNP accused Mr Brown of trying “to pull the wool over people's eyes” and quoted Sepp Blatter, the Fifa president, who said in March: “If you start to put together a combined team for the Olympic Games, the question will automatically come up that there are four different associations so how can they play in one team? If this is the case then why the hell do they have four associations and four votes and their own vice-presidency?

“This will put into question all the privileges that the British associations have been given by the Congress in 1946.”

Football's governing bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are vehemently opposed to a UK team, while the English FA supports it.

Craig Brown, the former Scotland manager, said that the UK team project was “disgraceful”. George Burley, the curent Scotland coach, said: “The national team comes first and at the moment we are keen to keep our nationality intact. We have to have a national Scottish team and we can't put that in jeopardy so there has been no change.”

Mr Blatter even suggested that it would be better for Britain to field a team entirely made up of English players because “this will then not provoke a long and endless discussion of the four British associations”.

The controversy began to take on a faint hint of the ludicrous when one MSP at Holyrood tried to answer Mr Blatter with a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that the controversial Barnett Formula - which is used to decide financial allocations in the UK - should be used to determine the make-up of a UK team.

More serious for Mr Brown, however, was the growing chorus of complaint from some of his own backbenchers in Scotland, angry that he appeared to have handed the Nationalists a propaganda weapon.

One MP said that instead of concentrating on the British medal success in Beijing, Mr Brown had diverted attention from the SNP's difficulty in how to respond to UK team's medal tally.

“Why mention this at all when everyone is on the crest of a wave over British success. Talk about Midas in reverse,” the MP said.

In a separate row over Olympic teams, Chris Hoy, the triple gold medal-winning cyclist, was quoted yesterday as saying that he found the SNP's desire for a Scottish Olympic team as “ridiculous”.

Hoy, from Edinburgh, said that he wouldn't have “three gold medals hanging round my neck” if he had not been part of a British Olympic team.

“In Scotland at the moment, we don't have an international facility for cycling. We don't have the coaching or anything else in place,” he said.

After arriving back in Britain with the rest of the Olympic team, Hoy continued his attack on the SNP position, saying that Scotland and Britain were “not mutually exclusive”.

Only hours after Sir Sean Connery had called for Scotland to field its own team to compete at future Olympics, Hoy, speaking at a Team GB press conference, said: “I have been very proud to represent Scotland at the Comonwealth Games and that is something I will always cherish. But today we are here to celebrate being a part of the UK team. Scotland is part of Britain. They are not mutually exclusive.

“I am a proud Scot and I am a proud Brit and as far as Scotland becoming an Olympic nation is concerned, there needs to be a lot of investment in facilities. Today is about the British team. We are here to celebrate that.”

Tales of decline are too gloomy,

David Aaronovitch, page 22

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