Despite Team GB reaching the quarterfinals at London 2012, the move will not be repeated at the next Games in Rio in 2016 for fear of jeopardising the individual status of the four home nations within FIFA.

"The pinnacle is the World Cup and we've got the European Championship as well," said FA general secretary Alex Horne.

"We play as England and we are proud to play as England and I know Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are proud to play as their own individual entities and we wouldn't want to do anything to risk that.

"FIFA accepted the position when we were hosting [the Olympics] and I think we take that and we move on."

However, Horne said that a British women's team in four years' time was not out of the question.

"For the women, we will keep talking to people about it," he said.

"We are not ruling it out completely; we went through a lot of politics to get here."

At London 2012, Britain fielded a football team at the Olympics for the first time since 1960, although at Munich 1972 an all-British team was knocked out in the qualifying stage.

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