Jersey's Island Games team won gold in Aland

The President of Jersey Football Association Ricky Weir says fans will have to wait to see the island play on the international stage.

Weir was responding to an invitation from the newly formed International Football Union (IFU) to join its group.

The IFU formed in August and says it wants to organise matches between federations not registered in FIFA.

Weir told BBC Jersey: "On the face of it, the premise of the IFU seems to be a noble one."

"If you look at their mandate it seems to stand up to a lot of the criteria that we are looking for."

The final option is .... we become the proactive force ourselves and create some kind of international small nations league JFA president Ricky Weir

"We are keeping our minds open and keeping some dialogue with the IFU to see what sort of substance they have."

However, Weir said the JFA must weigh up the benefits of joining a body such as the IFU and not upsetting Uefa or FIFA who Jersey would still like to join.

"I'm still in contact with Geoff Thompson, the former FA chairman who sits on FIFA and UEFA. He's indicated that he has got a working group off the ground to look at this scenario but it takes a long time.

"The final option is with all the contacts that we've built up in the last three to four years is whether we become the proactive force ourselves and create some kind of international small nations league that runs between the Island games, that would be the perfect scenario.

"However we achieve that, whether we do it be ourselves or through the IFU only time will tell."

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