TMI! (Too Much Information).

The International Olympic Committee is NOT going to allow a different set of nations to participate in a single discipline/sport (i.e., football) than in the event as a whole.

If FIFA lets the various countries of the UK enter separate teams in the World Cup, so be it, and you various nationalists should be glad of it. Such an arrangement might not last forever!

If the governing bodies of the sport can't select a UK football team that includes UK citizens other than Englishmen, that's wrong, and can only serve to field an inferior team. On the other hand, if there should be a competant and entirely fair selection process and not a single Scot, Welshman, or Irishman were skilled enough to qualify, shame on them.

How would the Opening Ceremony "parade of nations" work if the Olympics were to accept separate football teams from England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, while accepting UK teams and individuals for competition in track/athletics, swimming and diving, rowing, greco-roman wrestling and every other major and minor sport? Ridiculous!