A Great Britain Olympic team was selected by the FA for the men's Olympic football competitions between 1908 and 1972, but this was only for our male amateur players. The UK had stopped entering teams into the Olympic Football Tournament by the time of the first women's football competition was held in 1996, due to The FA abolishing the distinction between amateurism and professionalism in 1972. The spirit was that we should not enter what was regarded as an amateur competition. Hmm!
Therefore, Great Britain Women's football was not involved in the Olympics until 2012 when there was a squad made up with players from the "British countries", obviously. GB reached the Quarter-finals losing to Canada 0-2 at Coventry's Ricoh stadium. En route they beat New Zealand (1-0) in Cardiff, Brazil (1-0) in London and Cameroon (3-0) in Cardiff. Eventually the team was recorded as coming 5th. The 2012 squad was made up from Chelsea 2 players, Arsenal 6, Everton 3, Lincoln 2, Birmingham 3 and 3 from women playing for Swedish teams.
Team manager was Hope Powell (above) who played 66 times for England and scored 35 goals from 1978-87 and then was England team manager from 1998-2013, taking charge of the Great Britain squad for these London Olympics.
There was no agreement to run a Great Britain squad in the 2016 Olympics in Brazil.
In 2020 (2021) the Japan Olympics, the Great Britain squad is being managed by Norwegian, Hege Riise (below). Recently, there was a warm up friendly against New Zealand in Tokyo on July 14th and the team has already beaten Chile 2-0 in a first qualifying match. Later GB will meet hosts, Japan (July 24th) and Canada (27th), somewhat tougher opposition, hoping to progress on to greater things.
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