Great Britain

 

Michael Rae (Spennymoor Town)
vs. Russia (1:1, 5:3 pen) | Universiade | 2013 in Russia

That's right, Great Britain is a non-FIFA side. Shortly after FIFA was founded, they invited the UK to join them, who refused, arguing that FIFA is too small and irrelevant for the UK, whose football scene was thriving more than the sport did anywhere else. As FIFA grew, however, the two did meet again and again to negotiate and finally settled on a deal: FIFA will get a new - British - president and Wales, England , Scotland and (then British now Northern) Ireland will all have their own national Football Associations as individual members of FIFA. They also got the right to dominate the rules of the game, which are still defined by the (later 4) British FAs and FIFA in a council that has 8 members - giving the British FAs the same weight as the rest of the world. Now, the funny part is, that this was simple bribery. The FIFA president at the time went to the media saying that "allowing the four British FAs to join individually is admittedly against the rules of FIFA", but argued that the financial power of the sport in the UK is just so much beyond that of the rest of the world, that is neccessary to cater for them to grow further. FIFA and corruption, who would have thought.

Anyways, that was all in 1911 and is thus more than a hundred years ago. Today, all of the results of the bribery continue. It is still against the statutes of UEFA and FIFA. But no one seems to care. As a result, Great Britain (and similary the UK as a whole) are now non-FIFA sides that do occassionally play, mostly in arenas that actually know what a country is and were not bribed to forget their rules: The Olympics or the Universiade, e.g., an Olympic-like event for students.

This shirt is from the Universiade in Kazan, Russia, in 2013 and it is matchworn. I have no clue which player wore this shirt, but I want to mention one squad player from that tournament: Alex Dyer. As a die-hard national team fan, you might now Alex Dyer as the most-capped Montserrat international. Now, Montserrat is not part of Great Britain and Alex was born in Sweden, but somehow made it to the Universiade, probably because he studied in GB. Unlike in his 34 caps for Montserrat (to date) he actually once, in the opening match vs. Malaysia, and thus can call himself joined topscorer of the Great Britain team 2013. Congrats, I guess.

The shirt is made by Kukri, a sport manufacturer from Preston, England or Preston, Great Britain or Preston, United Kingdom. Who knows. Kukri is much better known for their cricket apparel, but apparently made an exception for this Universiade kit, equipping all sports that featured in the Olympic-like event. I do actually quite like the design with the subtle Union Jack printed into the fabric. Well done! That I got this beauty for around 30€ of course makes it all even better.