I remain as confused as the system itself is, regarding the supposed nationality of people, and this was demonstrated by a question to myself today, after reading that Mo Farah is not going to participate in the Commonwealth Games. Apparently he's ill and cannot compete for 'Team England'.
Exactly why is he deemed to be English? The Somali-born British Citizen is thus British, and managed quite ably to compete for the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) at the Olympics and other world events. For some weird reason, the Commonwealth, in the past referred to as the British Commonwealth, has a games which then refused to deal with Great Britain, but instead splits it into the 'home' nations. We are of course used to this approach from the football world, although hypocritically the 2012 Olympics in London saw, for the first time, a team under the GB collective from the four entities.
Back to the athletics. If Mo was adopted by Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and given 'British' status/identity, why does that mean he defaults to English when the UK decides to split itself for an athletics competition? As ever, England is the poor relation in the un-United Kingdom. The Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish have identities separate whilst within the UK, while England has little individual recognition let alone any power or substance.
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