UEFA should have foreseen problems ahead of Serbia-Albania Euro 2016 qualifying clash
To outsiders, Tuesday's Serbia-Albania Euro 2016 qualifier looked like another violent mess played out on a soccer pitch. Fans assaulted players. The hardcore ‘ultra’ element of the Serbian supporters - complete with balaclavas covering their faces - pelted Albanians with missiles. Some strode across the pitch and clashed with riot police, reveling in their roles as self-appointed, deluded freedom fighters. In the moment, it looked like somewhere we’d been before.
And it was.
In October 2010, another European Championship qualifier involving Serbia was abandoned because of crowd trouble. On that occasion, in Genoa for a game against Italy, Serbian fans turned on one of their own – goalkeeper Vladimir Stojkovic – who had recently joined Partizan Belgrade on loan. His crime? Playing for a bitter rival when he had already spent some time with the city’s other club Red Star. He was attacked before the game by a faction of Serbian fans and took refuge in the Italian dressing room. He refused to play, fearing for his safety. That night, there was a general understanding that Serbian ultras had just wanted trouble and were intent on finding it. Kick-off was initially delayed for forty minutes as away fans threw various objects on the pitch. But there was a very subtle subplot. In the midst of all the frenzy, a banner was unfurled. It read: ‘Kosovo is Serbia’.
Fast-forward four years and the area that lies between Albania and Serbia - the landmass that has a majority Albanian population; the territory that had been under Belgrade control before being made independent in 2008; the place that experienced mass executions ordered by then-Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in the late 1990s; the tired and weary nation that’s just trying to get on with life after a sustained period of death, destruction, pain and suffering - was referenced once again at a soccer stadium.
For some, the dispute between the countries is a neat way to rationalize what they do – to be hooligans. Amongst the Serb ultras in Genoa that night in 2010, the Kosovo angle was an after-thought but gave a legitimate explanation for their violent actions. Sure they were angry at Stojkovic or at Hilary Clinton (who had visited the region shortly before and commented about Kosovo) or at the recent imprisonment of a prominent Serbian drug-dealer. But Kosovo was a juicy political issue, embedded in the fractious history of the Balkan crisis. Ultimately there are ‘ultras’ that care only about violence. Some believe in a cause.
Perhaps the most striking image from Tuesday night’s abandoned game wasn’t the fans’ behaviour but that of the flag attached to the remote-controlled drone that essentially kick-started the chaos. It was an image of ‘Greater Albania’ – a hypothetical map of a territory in which all ethnic Albanians would live. But the timing was interesting. Why, when constructive discussions took place between Serbs and Kosovans last year, when relations between Serbia and Albania were relatively calm, was there any attempt to incite an always-delicately-poised and potentially poisonous event?
And therein lies the problem. Soccer will always be outweighed by political and historical context. Usually sport is just overwhelmed, caught in the middle of a dispute it’s not privy to. UEFA must have been aware of the possible problems of Tuesday’s game ever since Serbia and Albania were named in the same qualification group. But, with an apparent compromise between the two and neither country in conflict with each other, the organization saw no reason to keep them apart. However, there were precautions taken. Away supporters were banned in Belgrade. Albania had requested 2,000 tickets but the Serbian FA wanted to attach a condition: that all 2,000 would need to show their Albanian passports upon entering the stadium, thereby excluding ethnic Albanians (including those living in Kosovo) from attending the fixture. Unsurprisingly, the compromise was rejected and there was an added edge to fixture that already dangled precariously on the precipice.
As always, UEFA and soccer’s authorities have heavily criticized the scenes played out on Tuesday. The big talk and the hard-hitting words sound impressive but its own investigation into what happened would do well to find out just why Ivan Bogdanov, the prominent, bald-headed Serb ultra, was at the match. He was a central figure in 2010, during the abandoned game against Italy. That night, he was perched on top of a partition, his face covered with a balaclava, a flare in one hand and a wire-cutter in the other. He was one of the Serb fans that assaulted goalkeeper Vladimir Stojkovic before kick-off. He was subsequently arrested and spent time in Italian and Serbian prisons. But despite being a well-known, dangerous and notorious soccer hooligan, there was no lifetime stadium ban for him. Why? The answer is simple: ultras are not renegade fans. In many European countries, they are a political force at soccer clubs, wielding substantial influence. They are culturally significant to certain soccer circles. Sometimes, they're a force for good, sometimes not. But because of their standing within clubs, they remain. And any chance they get to step onto the international stage and make a destructive and symbolic statement, they will take it.
Ultimately, the bans and the suspensions and the replays in neutral venues are meaningless. Sport, and soccer in particular, will find it increasingly difficult to handle tense political situations. We've already seen it with various organizations and how they've dealt with the social ills that have permeated soccer's fabric. Racism is rife but what is the penalty for racist clubs or racist fans or racist countries? Game bans? Fines? What is racism? As the Premier League punished both Luis Suarez and John Terry for on-field racist offences, there are currently just two black managers from a total of 92 top-flight and lower league clubs and a reluctance to implement regulation similar to NFL's Rooney Rule.
Soccer authorities seem to be drowning in the deep and murky waters of social disobedience. Without a moral high-ground to work from, they're furiously swimming against the tide. Ominously for them, it's a powerful current and shows no signs of calming. With an expanded European Championship in 2016 and a World Cup in Russia two years later, UEFA and FIFA could face a tidal wave of political and historical issues. Under such a heavy weight, it’s possible they both will go under.
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Eoin O'Callaghan is a soccer journalist and broadcaster. Best known in North America for his TV work with Fox Soccer, he has also reported extensively for BBC, RTE and Setanta Sports. He writes about soccer for The Irish Examiner newspaper, beIN Sports, One World Sports and TheScore.ie. Follow him @EoinOCallaghan
