Like four years ago, Serbia suffers defeat and leaves the World Cup, while Kosovo celebrates. Switzerland Serbia is never a trivial game and when football doesn’t abstract from politics the opposite becomes true, especially given what happened during and after the game on Friday night.
“Serbia won’t get through. Congratulations to Switzerland,” Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti wrote on Facebook at the end of the meeting. On the streets of the capital Pristina and other Kosovar cities, people took to the streets to celebrate a victory that “they also partly consider theirs”, given the presence in the team of Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri, both of Kosovar origin .
In the Balkans, “the Switzerland-Serbia meeting has clear political connotations that were also seen on the ground.” Belgrade also stigmatized the behavior of midfielder Granit Xhaka, who allegedly “insulted the mothers of Serbian players” in Albanian, some local media reported. Some also consider Xhaka’s decision to wear his partner Ardon Jashari’s shirt unacceptable. A reference, according to the Serbian press, to Adem Jashari, one of the leaders and one of the founders of the UCK, the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Meanwhile, off-field relations between Pristina and Belgrade are hitting a new negative record as the Kosovan government appointed a new minister later in the week, Serb Nenad Rasic, a moderate politician who does not have the support of the main party representing Kosovo’s Serbs “. In addition, Serbian President Aleksander Vucic has described Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti as “terrorist scum”.
All of this comes days ahead of the EU-Balkans meeting (scheduled for next Tuesday) in the Albanian capital of Tirana, where the region’s leaders are expected to discuss various burning issues, not least that of the war in Ukraine, but which risk end up having nothing and being boycotted by some leaders.
ATS/AFP/RG/Swing
Published on: December 03, 2022 02:38 pm Last modified: December 03, 2022 09:55 pm