After the overall success in Rio British Olympic officials will have another go at persuading the home nations to enter men’s and women’s football teams for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
The lack of a British women’s side in particular was seen as a missed opportunity to grow the game.
While the English FA was keen to enter a side in Rio, the other home nations would not agree.
They feared it would undermine their sovereignty and refused to be pushed into the move, even though Fifa has given guarantees it would not affect their status.
If the women’s side, who qualified because England finishing third at the World Cup in Canada, had taken up their place it would have denied the eventual Olympic silver medallists, Sweden, a slot.
“We are all desperately disappointed that there isn’t a football team for Team GB, primarily the women’s because they are so strong, had a great season leading up to this, but also on the men’s side as well,” said Bill Sweeney, the British Olympic Association’s chief executive.
“And we’ll be having meetings when we get back to try and sort that out with the FA. If you look at the success of women’s hockey here, to have had a similar sort of story in football would have been absolutely fantastic.”
UK Sport chief executive Liz Nicholl said the FA had been in touch to learn some of the lessons of its Olympic success and that it would be “fantastic” to have the women’s side, in particular, on board in Tokyo.
“The FA has been in touch, particularly in relation to women’s potential success,” she said. “And I would say here, we could win more medals in Tokyo, actually we could win one more medal in Tokyo from a sport like football, if we had the GB women’s football team here. I have no doubt they would have also won a medal here in Rio.”
New England manager Sam Allardyce has also backed the return of a British team to the Olympics, which happened on a one-off basis for London 2012.
“When you see the delight on Justin Rose’s face when he won the gold medal in golf it shows what it all means,” he told the BBC. “It’s something we may look at in the future and try to compete in.”
But any attempt by the BOA to return to the subject is bound to be politically sensitive and it may look to lead the discussions itself rather than through the English FA.
“I think the athletes would have loved the environment and would have loved to have had the chance to perform at their best in a country like Brazil, which is so passionate about football,” said Sweeney.
