Quote:
Originally posted by Luminary
Can someone explain why the UK has different teams in football? I actually don't understand. With most sports it's just the UK.. no? Andy Murray doesn't play for Scotland..
|
Because the British invented international soccer. England and Scotland played the first game between two national soccer teams in Glasgow in 1872 in front of 4,000 spectators. Twelve years later, the national soccer associations of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland launched the British Home Championship tournament, which was contested almost every year for the next century. Meanwhile, FIFA, the governing body responsible for the World Cup, didn't come along until 1904. By that point, the United Kingdom's four independent national soccer associations were deemed too powerful to be combined.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...cer_teams.html
