KEY POINTS:
Having football at the Olympics is like having a Fat-o-Gram at a stag do - you know why they're there but it's still wrong. Countries far more steeped in football tradition than New Zealand have rejected the IOC and Fifa's cynical collusion and pay lip service only in trying to qualify.
To make it even worse, the men's event is a bastardised half-man, half-boy event where all but three of the players must be under 23. Is this the Olympics, the pinnacle event of the sporting calendar, or a scout jamboree?
This is argument enough for the men not taking place but one that will not bother New Zealand Football one jot. "It is what it is," they will argue. "We have qualified so therefore we must go."
Well, no actually. Selection is the sole preserve of the New Zealand Olympic Committee, as it always should be. To say Sepp-tic Blatter would be upset if New Zealand did not go is neither here nor there.
When it is incumbent upon Blatter to pick our Olympic team, then it is time for us to start wearing leather shorts and eating sausages and cabbage for breakfast. Blatter has bigger concerns than a country that is barely a pimple on the backside of world football deciding to opt out of a fourth-rate tournament.
Last week, NZOC secretary-general Barry Maister spoke glowingly about Rowing New Zealand's attitude towards selecting their crews. They looked at the NZOC criteria and thought, `No, we can do better than that - we'll send only crews we think can make A finals.'
Now that is not to suggest it is New Zealand's fault that their qualifying path is farcically easy. They can only play whom they're drawn against and if that means that defeating Kiribati, Niue and Pitcairn Island is good enough for Fifa, then so be it.
But don't just expect it to be good enough for the NZOC.
There will be those in NZOC circles who will feel uncomfortable about the presence of the women's and particularly the men's football team at Beijing. They should be encouraged to speak out, not silenced.
The $200,000 or so the NZOC will save by not sending the football teams will not cost them a medal, or even the chance to develop a team that will win medals in the future (the format of the men's event makes that impossible anyway). Not even the most diehard roundie will argue that.
