Phil Austin, the Jersey Football Association president, believes sympathetic nations were afraid to oppose senior Uefa members in Bratislava.
Despite unofficial offers of support from a small handful of countries in the build-up to yesterday’s decision in Slovakia, not one delegate raised a green card in favour of Jersey’s bid for international football.
Five nations refused to lift a card at all – despite the option to abstain – leaving the result at 49 out of 55 against, with one abstention.
‘There seems to be some confusion about the other six,’ said Austin.
‘There was one formal abstention and five didn’t vote, so were they people who were going to vote for us but became intimidated when the president [Aleksander Ceferin] said they could not violate their statutes [relating to independence]?
‘Some had promised to vote for us, but for some reason they then felt unable to vote.
‘It would have been nice to have those six voting in our favour, but it is still six countries who did not vote with the executive.’
It became apparent on Sunday afternoon that news of Jersey’s presence had not been shared as widely as perhaps it should – or at least that a number of nations had not taken the time to read details of the application.
Austin greeted a selection of delegates in Bratislava’s Grand Hotel as they checked in for their annual formal duties, and while Gibraltar, Scotland and Wales all offered time for a quick chat there were others who appeared to have little knowledge of what was at the bottom of their agenda.
Uefa first vice-president Karl-Erik Nielsson – Europe’s second most influential football official – merely said he ‘had heard something’ about Jersey’s application and executive member Borislav Mihaylov, the former Reading goalkeeper, admitted it was ‘all about politics’.
More in Tuesday's Guernsey Press.
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