Our players must put the club before their Olympic ambitions, warns Gordon Smith

GORDON Smith has warned Rangers players against competing in next year's Olympic Games. The director of football says that he would not be happy if any of them agreed to represent Great Britain at a time when they were needed at Ibrox.

"I'm not happy if it means that they're leaving at a crucial time of the season," said Smith. "Supposing you have Champions League matches to play and you've got players in your first team saying 'we are going to play in the Olympics'?"

Smith was reacting to comments made in last week's Scotland on Sunday by David Weir, who said that he would not hesitate to play for Team GB. The Rangers defender said that most Scottish players were of a similar mind, and that they'd be "very foolish" to reject the opportunity.

"I don't want to go against David Weir," added Smith. "I can understand what he's saying. Some players might want to go and play in it. (But if] the season's ongoing, do you walk away from your team at that time? If you're chosen, you might think that it's going to be fantastic to play in the Olympics. You might go and do it. It's up to the individual player. If they really do want to go and play in it, I could understand that, but we would have a concern with the player if he was required for crucial matches and he was saying 'no, I'm going to play in the Olympics'."

Smith argued against the participation of Scottish players during his spell as chief executive of the Scottish Football Association, which fears that a British team would threaten the autonomy of the national side. The SFA's special privileges within FIFA, which include a seat on the International Football Association Board, might also be at risk.

He says that, in his previous post, he submitted a three-point letter on behalf of the four associations, arguing that football should not even be an Olympic sport. First, he said that the Games should include only those sports in which a gold medal is the pinnacle. Second, he pointed out that London 2012 clashes with the start of the football season. And third, he claimed that limiting the men's team to under-23 players was discriminatory.

"I spoke to the Olympic people and they said to me 'You are discriminating against Scottish players who want to play in the Olympics'. I said, 'Yes, and so are you'. They went, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'You're the one that's making an age limit'. I said, 'Tell me any other event in the Olympics that's got an age limit. There isn't one'.

"Why is it an under-23 tournament? The reason is that FIFA probably don't want it to be an all-encompassing tournament because then it competes with the World Cup. They are making it a discriminatory tournament. In that respect, why not make it a tournament for left-footed players?"

Smith also says that it was agreed with England's Football Association that they would manage and pick a British team without any players from the other home nations."I was in the meeting and we all agreed that England would be the representatives. England said, 'It's in England so we need to be the representatives'. And we said that we would be happy with that. The other three nations said, 'You take the team'. England said, 'We'll do that, and we won't pick any of your players'. So the English FA certainly weren't going to. It seems as if it's the Olympic authorities now who are making the decision to pick players, not the FA."