Euro bid aftermath/Keith Duggan Broken but unbowed, the Irish delegates of the doomed Celtic bid for the European Championships in 2008 returned to Dublin yesterday insisting they had no regrets.

The Scottish and Irish manifesto was eliminated after tieing in fourth place with Hungary during Wednesday's voting process of elimination. The Celtic bid lost on a vote of 5-3, leaving the Hungarians vying with the Greek bid and the Swiss/Austrian vote. As anticipated, the Swiss were ultimately successful, with nine final votes to the Hungarians' three.

"In that light, we were fourth," said Simon Lyons, marketing director of the Scottish and Irish campaign. "We were confident that with the Nordic bid having been eliminated, if we were to have gone through to the final three we would have gotten the Scandinavian transfers. Our strategy all along was to get into that final bunch and I believe that if we had achieved that we could have gone on to win.

"That was the source of our optimism, and we maintain that it was the right strategy. We believe everything had been done and that we had a genuinely strong bid."

Such was the conviction on the eve of the vote in Geneva that it was widely considered that the Celtic bid and the Swiss presentation left the other contenders behind.

But on Thursday morning, UEFA's National Teams Committee (NTC) failed to include the Scottish/Irish claims in their initial shortlist of four, a list that was eventually disregarded by the executive committee.

That initial list leaned heavily towards the candidates from the east of the Continent, leaving the Celtic delegates to conclude that simple geography had worked against them.

"I think this is where the geo-political issue comes in," said Brendan Menton of the FAI. "If you look at the bids that the NTC recommended, it was Austria, Hungary and Greece/Turkey, countries in central and Eastern Europe. We were surprised, because based on our strong technical performance we were confident that we would survive until the last two or three. We didn't at the political voting stage, and that was the key point where our bid fell down."

The Celtic presentation was awarded a 94 per cent grading on the technical aspect of their presentation, just one percent less than the Swiss. That rating had convinced the delegates that the sorry saga of the national stadium issue did not hinder the Celtic chances.

"Let's make one thing clear," said Lyons. "Stadiums and security were not an issue. We got 94 per cent. If we had all the stadiums built, what would we have got, 96 per cent? That's the reality. We went forward with a strong bid, relatively good intelligence, with a strong campaign. We did not change our message at all and we were right."

The delegates were adamant that Ireland had received sufficient political support from the Government and that the confusion surrounding the availability of Croke Park had no bearing on the outcome of events. The key issue, they insisted, was a late and unreadable swing by the NTC towards the candidates from the eastern front.

"Let me just turn this on its head a little bit," Menton argued. "Hungary came second. They had to invest €1 billion in stadia as part of their proposal. The feedback we got when we made our presentation on Wednesday afternoon to the joint executive committee and the NTC was extremely good. Our presentation was among the best.

"The bid did not suffer from a lack of credibility on those issues. You have to go back to the technical assessment scoring, and that included things like political support."

Lyons emphasised the support the bid received from the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern. "During the inspection visit, the six guys from UEFA met with Bertie Ahern and they were very impressed by his love of football. They were actually a bit amused that he seemed to know more about football than some of them. I think that rang through, and I know that nobody questioned his enthusiasm."

Despite that, the Celtic bid fell at a relatively early stage. Menton stressed that the cost of the bid had been minimal and that the lessons the delegates from both countries learned over the past few days were invaluable. Both associations will deliberate over the coming years about whether they should bid for the 2012 tournament.

"I think there was an opportunity for 2008,"concluded Menton. "The reality is that UEFA made a decision, they picked a very credible bid and we are disappointed."

The recriminations have already begun in Scotland, with former international Kenny Dalglish - rumoured to be a contender for the vacant Republic of Ireland managerial post - suggesting that the Scottish and Irish associations should sue UEFA for effectively misleading them in relation to the criteria for a successful bid.