Jersey FA boss: UEFA membership "balanced on a knife edge"

Thursday 29 June 2017

Jersey’s appeal to become a member of UEFA is “balanced on a knife edge”, the Chair of the Jersey Football Association has said.

Phil Austin, JFA Chair, visited Lausanne with JFA Treasurer David Brookland, External Affairs Minister Philip Bailhache and legal officials yesterday to present the Island’s case in a six-hour hearing. A decision could take up to three months to be reached.

If the JFA manage to convince the Court of Arbitration for Sport of their case, the Island could secure over €11 million in funding.

Jersey had previously applied to join the Union of European Football Associations in 2015, following the example of Kosovo moving towards full membership, but was rejected as it was not considered to be an independent state under UN regulations.

However, UEFA has now amended its statutes and British Overseas Territory Gibraltar was allowed to join in 2013 after a 12-year wait to fulfil the island’s ambition.

If Jersey is successful this time round, the Island could not only secure millions in funding, but could compete against some of the biggest global names in football.

While he said he was “happy” about the JFA legal team's pitch, Mr Austin told Express that the panel, consisting of three judges, “...gave no clues as to their thinking." 

“Mostly it was very technical, legal arguments about criteria for entering UEFA… The word football was mentioned maybe half a dozen times at the most. If you’d gone into that room not knowing what it was, you’d never have known that it was a football discussion,” he explained.

Nonetheless, he said that the Jersey team, who sat through the sitting from 9:30 until around 16:00, “…came out feeling good about the day.”

“We’re very happy with the way our legal team presented our case and we came out feeling good about the day, but without any knowledge or insight as to what the outcome may be. I would say that this is balanced on a knife edge. It’s very, very finely balanced."