Brave face over 2008 failure

Friedrich Stickler, Austrian FA President celebrates

Scotland and Ireland's bid to host the Euro 2008 finished joint third when Uefa chiefs chose the winner, it has emerged.

Scottish Football Association (SFA) chief executive David Taylor said the Celtic proposal was far closer to hosting the competition than initial reports suggested.

At a Uefa ceremony in Geneva on Thursday, the Austria-Switzerland bid was announced as the winner, while the Scottish-Irish submission appeared to come fourth out of seven.

But speaking at Hampden Park in Glasgow on Friday, Mr Taylor said the Scots rated higher and the disappointment of missing out was tempered by the quality of the joint bid.

David Taylor: Joint bid was "much closer"

He said the joint bid finished second in a Uefa technical assessment with 94% - only one percentage point behind the winners.

The National Teams Committee, however, which recommended four bids to Uefa's executive committee, failed to include Scotland and Ireland.

Mr Taylor said the executive employed a "weakest link" voting strategy to eliminate bids.

He said: "Scotland and Ireland went out in a tie for third place after the Nordic bid.

"And we lost a 5-3 vote, which kept us out of the final three.

'Cold light of day'

"If we had got into the last three, we had high hopes of winning."

Mr Taylor said he would have been optimistic of the Celtic bid's chances if it had gone into a play-off with the eventual winners.

He added: "I still believe we were the bid that had the best chance of beating Austria and Switzerland."

Mr Taylor said: "In the cold light of day, following yesterday's announcement, the disappointment of not winning the championships does not get any easier.

"It would have been a magnificent football tournament had it come to Scotland and Ireland.

"In our analysis, it has become apparent that we came much closer to winning this contest than we had originally thought."