Susan Al-Shalabi, the vice president of the Palestinian Football Federation and a member of the AFC Executive Committee, who attended the congress, clarified that the Palestinians' failure to vote for Saudi Arabia was an accident. The Palestinian representative, she explained, happened to be outside the hall when the vote started. By the time he realized his mistake the voting apparatus was off and did not register his vote. Al-Shalabi added that after the incident she had immediately approached the President of the Saudi Football Association, Yasser Al-Mashal, and explained the situation; moreover, the president of the Palestinian Football Federation, Jibril Rajoub, met with Al-Mashal and explained the incident as well.

The Saudi sports magazine Al-Riyadiah tweeted a video of the meeting between Rajoub and Mashal, during which the former congratulated the Saudi people, and the Saudi king and crown prince, on the selection of the kingdom to host the games and said: "Our representative obviously made a technical mistake during the vote." Al-Mashal agreed that there had been "a very simple error," and added that Turkmenistan had given a similar explanation for its failure to vote.

Although the Palestinians' failure to vote for Saudi Arabia was apparently the result of an error, the reports about it sparked angry reactions from Saudis on social media, including from Saudi journalists and intellectuals, who slammed the Palestinians, some of them posting under the hashtag "Palestine is not my cause."

The posts accused the Palestinians of being hostile and ungrateful towards Saudi Arabia, and some of the writers stated that Palestine does not interest them. Similar sentiments were expressed in articles published in the Saudi press.