Kosovo: Milestone match after years in limbo

Haiti were the opponente as Kosovo played their fist FIFA approved international

JAMES MONTAGUE in Mitrovica, Kosovo - World Soccer

Under black clouds and plumes of acrid yellow smoke, a group of young men in blue tracksuits are meeting each other on a football pitch for the first time. The players of the Kosovo national team run around the pitch of the decrepit stadium in Obilic – a poor, industrial town dominated by Kosovo’s two largest power stations which, according to the World Bank, represent the “worst single-point source of pollution in Europe” – as a crowd of a few hundred look on.

In two days time the players are due to be involved in an important milestone in Kosovo’s recent history. After years of politics, fighting, failure, fraught negotiation and, finally, a tentative agreement, Kosovo are about to play their first FIFA-approved match: a friendly against Haiti. “I feel great because we struggled to have this opportunity to show the world we have tradition in football,” says Eroll Salihu, the general secretary of the Football Federation of Kosovo (FFK), as he watches the team train. “It will be the first step for recognition of football.”

Since 2008 the FFK has been pushing for recognition by UEFA and FIFA, which has proved to be a politically explosive issue. Ever since the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, and the 1999 war in Kosovo, the region has been in political limbo. Despite being recognised by over 100 United Nations members, and 23 of the 28 European Union states, Kosovo remains unrecognised due largely to opposition from Russia and Serbia, who still view Kosovo as an intrinsic and historic part of the Serbian state. 

Both war and the subsequent lack of political recognition has had a devastating effect on football in Kosovo. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled the war 15 years ago, spreading its people across Europe, in Sweden, Norway, Belgium and Switzerland among others. Despite producing an inordinate amount of talent – Xherdan Shaqiri, Lorik Cana, Granit Xhaka, Valon Behrami and Adnan Januzaj were all either born in Kosovo or have Kosovar parents – with no recognised national team of their own, many of those players have represented the countries in which they settled. Most tellingly, Switzerland qualified for the 2014 World Cup at a canter with a core of Kosovar players.

UEFA statutes

There seemed little chance that Kosovo would be recognised by UEFA after it changed its statutes to allow only UN members to join. But when, in 2012, Sepp Blatter backed calls for Kosovo to be allowed to play friendlies it reignited the issue, angering the Serbs and worrying the Swiss, who feared they may lose their best players if a Kosovo team was recognised.

Before Switzerland played Albania in a World Cup qualifi er in October 2012, Salihu and FFK president Fadil Vokrri embarked on an audacious operation. Shaqiri, Xhaka, Behrami and others signed a petition calling for Kosovo to be allowed the right to play friendlies. The Switzerland-Albania meeting was a symbolic match as nine of the 22 players during that game had Kosovar roots.

But it wasn’t until January this year that an agreement was reached with Serbia. Friendly matches could be played, but no Kosovo fl ag could be flown and no national anthem played. The issue now was which players to call up. Salihu decided not to call up any players who would be planning a trip to Brazil this summer. “We are football people,” Salihu says of that decision. “They have the world championship so we have to take care for them and not just our own interests.”

The Kosovar players that were chosen speak with Swedish, Norwegian and German accents. Among them were goalkeeper Samir Ujkani, who played for Albania in that match against Switzerland 18 months ago, Norway’s Ardian Gashi and Switzerland striker Albert Bunjaku, who played in the 2010 World Cup finals.

“My parents were born here, I was born here, all my family was born here, so it was 100 per cent that I came here to play,” says Bunjaku. So, how did he feel when he represented Switzerland? “I was six when I went to Switzerland,” he recalls. “I am very grateful for what Switzerland did.

“When Ottmar Hitzfeld called me it was great. It was unbelievable. I can’t explain with words. But this is my country. I see myself as Kosovan.” 

Although the coach Albert Bunjaki – who is no relation – chose a team of players from around Europe, the diffi culty was building a team ethic. Trips were arranged to famous monuments and the house of a Kosovo war hero. Before the game Kosovo’s prime minister and president both met the team. “These people fought for Kosovo just as we are fi ghting for Kosovo on the field,” explains the coach. “We are warriors as well, just in a different way.”

Of course, not everyone was happy that Kosovo were playing their first FIFA-approved friendly match, especially as the northern city of Mitrovica had been chosen to host it.  

Mitrovica remains a divided city  where most of Kosovo’s Serbian  minority, which makes up five per cent of  the population, still lives. A river bisects  the city, with the Serbs in the north and  Kosovar Albanians in the south. The  bridge that links the two is guarded by a detachment of Italian Carabinieri.  Crossing north the walls are covered in  anti-EU graffiti. Serbian flags fly from most buildings. The Serbian dinar is the  currency of choice and the northern population vote in Serbian elections. 

Partizan Kosovska Mitrovica

A few miles north of the bridge, Igor Uljarevic is standing on the pitch of a dishevelled, covered training complex. Electrical wires hang down on to the pitch as rain falls through the tears in the fabric. The 35-year-old is a coach and striker for Partizan Kosovska Mitrovica, who play in the Serbian fourth tier.

Before the war they used to play in what is now known as the Adem Jashari Stadium in the south, where Kosovo’s first match is due to be played in a few hours time. But no one goes south any more. “We don’t care about it,” Uljarevic explains. “We have our side, our team.

We don’t care about the game and no one will watch the game. [It’s a] Provocation and we don’t support that. “We don’t want to know anything about that match.”

The issue of Kosovo’s Serbs had been a vexing one for the FFK. They had hoped to call up a Kosovar Serb player to the team but that was a bridge too far. “If a Serbian plays in that, the [Kosovo] team has all the support of Europe,” says Uljarevic, who believes the move was a PR exercise. “They can say look ‘we have Serbian players here, we saw it on television that Serbian players play in Kosovo.’ But that is not good for us.” 

As kick-off approached in Mitrovica,  the roads leading to the stadium were  full of flags and song; flags of Kosovo,  Albania, the USA – a country still wildly popular and seen as saviours of the fledgling Kosovar nation – and the European Union. But, inside, the Kosovars were good to their word. On the stadium’s flagpoles flew the standards of opponents Haiti and FIFA, but nothing from Kosovo. 

The stands, though, were full of flags from every corner of Kosovo. Some anti-Serbian chanting could be heard as well, but no national anthem was sung. More than 17,000 people jammed into the stadium as the rain fell on the uncovered crowds. The match would end in a 0-0 draw, played on an awful, waterlogged pitch. As might be expected from a team co-coached by former England assistant Tord Grip, Kosovo’s defence was watertight. 

Salihu, the FFK and the Kosovo nation hope that the match will be the first of many. They hope they will be recognised by UEFA and FIFA in time to begin qualification for the 2018 World Cup finals in Russia, the country providing the main obstacle to Kosovo’s political recognition in the UN Security Council. 

Kosovo’s football fans may well have waited a lifetime for their first FIFA approved match, but recognition will require more patience yet.