Football News : Team GB women’s football team assured Olympics will be hugely safe

Members of Team GB's Olympic women's football team have told SNTV they have been assured the Tokyo games will be "hugely safe", despite increasing calls in Japan for its cancellation. An 18-strong squad - including fifteen England players, Wales skipper Sophie Ingle and Scots Caroline Weir and Kim Little - was named on Thursday just hours after the chairman of Japan's Doctors' Union told a media conference that bringing 15,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes into the country could lead to a "new disaster." This is only the second time that Team GB have entered a women's football team since the introduction of the sport to the Olympic programme in 1996. Great Britain, who went out in the quarter-finals in their last Olympics appearance at London 2012, start their Tokyo campaign against Chile on Wednesday, 21 July, before further Group E games against hosts Japan and 2016 bronze medallists Canada. Head coach Hege Riise won Olympic gold as a player with Norway in 2000 and was also assistant coach to the USA team that won gold at London 2012. She is in temporary charge of England until Netherlands boss Sarina Wiegman takes over in September, and has overseen two defeats and one win in three friendly matches for the Lionesses since replacing Phil Neville, who was originally supposed to manage Team GB before opting to leave for Inter Miami.