Pearce And Powell To Lead GB Football Teams

Stuart Pearce has been appointed to take charge of the men’s first Great British Olympic football team for over 50 years, and has made an appeal to the Scottish, Northern Irish and Welsh Football Associations to make their players available for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Hope Powell has been selected to manage the women’s Team GB team.

Powell has led England’s women for 13 years, including four successive major finals, including Euro 2005 on home soil.

Pearce told BBC Sport: ‘I’m not going into this job looking only to select English players. If at all possible, it should be made up of all the home nations. They should come forward and put their players up for selection.’

Pearce has made the appeal after a proportion of the home nations opposed the idea of a British team because of the potential undermining of their independence as football nations – despite assurances from FIFA.

The 18-man squad must contain 15 players who were born on, or after, 1 January 1989 – but three players can be older – while there is no age limit for the women’s selections.

Great Britain will field a men’s team for the first time since the Rome Games of 1960, while the women are making their debut.

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