"The Exceptions Panel can grant a Governing Body Endorsement (GBE) to those players who are short of meeting the criteria. The GBE operates on a points-based system which considers: international appearances, quality of the selling club and club appearances."
Not claiming to know much about this but...
International appearances = 0
Quality of selling club. Not sure if that applies in this circumstance but they're now a third tier Austrian club and struggling second tier when he played there.
Club appearances, not many recently and when I looked before and seemed to think he wasn't a regular starter when in the top flight?