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Previous British prime ministers as keen to please as John Major and Tony Blair got their fingers burnt when choosing to meddle in football, and now it is Gordon Brown’s turn. As if the embattled son of Kirkcaldy — and Raith Rovers fan — does not have enough on his plate, Brown has caused apoplexy among the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland football associations by urging that a Team GB in football be in place for the 2012 London Olympics.

Looking on from the touchlines, you may think it is a peculiar stir that has broken out. Great Britain have just had a momentous Olympics in Beijing, and foremost among them has been the triple gold medal-winning cyclist, Chris Hoy, a Scot, who has proudly worn GB on his vest. So what, actually, is the big deal about Brown insisting that Britain, the cradle of football, should have a team in place in four years’ time?

You would know the answer to that question if you watched the steam rising from the head offices of the Scottish FA (SFA) or the FA of Wales (FAW). Indeed, the finest piece of excoriation available after Brown’s humble suggestion came from Peter Rees, the president of the FAW, who said: “It will be a cold day in hell before any Wales player plays for Team GB at the Olympics.”

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Gordon Smith, an otherwise open-minded chief executive of the SFA, is of a like mind. “In principle, we are opposed to it,” Smith told The Times yesterday. “The SFA wants nothing to do with a GB Olympic football team.”

Wading into the fray were two other figures yesterday, the first a political showman, the other an assured International Olympic Committee veteran, both taking diametrically opposite views.

Alex Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland, has reacted like a cuckolded husband at the very idea of Scottish footballers being asked to take part in a Team GB in 2012. “It is ridiculous, a major own goal by the Prime Minister,” Salmond said, foaming. “I am against it, the SFA are against it, the fans are against it, yet here is Brown trying to force it through.”

Sir Craig Reedie, a revered Scottish sports administrator, and member of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, was more sanguine. “It is going to happen — there will be a

GB football team at the 2012 Olympics and people better start getting used to the idea,” Reedie said.

What is at stake here, in truth, is self-preservation. The paranoia of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish FAs amounts to this: if Britain is seen to be lumped together for football at the next Olympics, then what is to stop Fifa coming barging in and saying: “Right, you lot, that’s enough, pack up. From now on, we will just have a Great Britain Football Association and no other”? In essence, the SFA and others believe that a 2012 Britain football team would mean that their blazers would be just as well going on top of a bonfire as being put back in the closet.

Some believe that the siege mentality of the SFA and FAW is absurd, and that no such dissolution will take place because of a footballing Team GB. Sepp Blatter, the president of Fifa, has certainly not said as much, although Blatter’s rambling style often changes in tone, if rarely in length.

There is one further anxiety that troubles the four home football associations — including the FA — and that is almost a hangover from the days of the Raj. The vexed and sore subject of football’s International Board has long troubled the game’s administrators, especially if you hail from Africa, India or South America. The International Football Association Board (Ifab), to give it its full title, is the supreme law-making authority in the game. It is also, democratically, an absurdity, consisting of an eight-man board, four of which, by guarantee, are representatives of Britain’s four home nations, with the other four places representing the rest of Fifa’s 240-odd member nations.

If this is not a throwback to the age when Britain “owned” parts of the globe, then what is? The Ifab is a shocking anachronism, yet for the FA, the SFA, the FAW and the Northern Ireland FA, it provides much-cherished elitism. Twice a year the Ifab convenes, usually in some exotic hot-spot, and no one among the four home FAs wants to upset the cosy arrangement.

In football, ludicrously, Britain still rules the waves. It is this that is the real rub of that scoundrel, Brown, and his daft ideas.

Don’t anyone doubt that a 2012 Team GB would, in effect, be Team England. Barring a miraculous new harvest of talent, few Scots, Welsh or Northern Irish will figure. But that is a matter of pride. The rest of it, pure and simple, is politics.

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