International soccer match Serbia - Albania 2014

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The international soccer match between Serbia and Albania was played on October 14, 2014 as part of the qualification for the 2016 European Championship in France between the national teams of Serbia and Albania in the Partizana stadium in Belgrade . It was interrupted in the 42nd minute when the score was 0: 0 by the English referee Martin Atkinson due to a drone with the Great Albanian flag suddenly floating on the field , which ultimately led to riots between spectators , players and law enforcement officers , and then canceled. The game was ultimately rated 3-0 for Albania due to a CAS judgment; the Serbian and Albanian associations were also punished by various UEFA measures .

prehistory

Serbia and Albania were drawn into the same qualifying group on February 23, 2014. The UEFA Executive Committee looked despite the strained relations between the two neighbors because of international law disputed Kosovo no reason to prevent the game encounters between the two nations. In other cases it had taken into account political conflicts between individual participating states and excluded the clash between Spain and Gibraltar and Azerbaijan and Armenia . The three criteria listed by UEFA for preventing a potentially dangerous game were: poor diplomatic relations between countries, an armed or military conflict or an association's request to split the match. All this was not the case with a view to the match between Serbia and Albania after UEFA. After the draw, the football associations of Serbia and Albania have agreed to their teams in the two encounters each no followers to let the visiting team in the stadium.

While the Serbian selection had no play on matchday one in the group and instead played a friendly against France , the Albanian national team defeated Portugal 1-0 in Aveiro . On matchday two, Albania drew 1-1 with Denmark , as did Serbia with Armenia. As a result, Denmark and Albania led with four points each, ahead of Serbia and Armenia (one point each) and Portugal (no point), although Serbia and Portugal had only played one game in qualifying group I at this point.

Pl. country Sp. S. U N Gates Diff. Points
 1. DenmarkDenmark Denmark  2  1  1  0 003: 200  +1 04th
 2. AlbaniaAlbania Albania  2  1  1  0 002: 100  +1 04th
 3. SerbiaSerbia Serbia  1  0  1  0 001: 100  ± 0 01
 4th ArmeniaArmenia Armenia  2  0  1  1 002: 300  −1 01
 5. PortugalPortugal Portugal  1  0  0  1 000: 100  −1 00
Status: October 14, 2014

It was the first international match between the two nations. A Yugoslav national team had last played against Albania in 1967 during qualifying for the 1968 European Championship in Italy and won both games.

Course of the game

The game was kicked off at 20:45 ( CEST ) by English referee Martin Atkinson in the sold-out Partizana stadium in Belgrade . The Serbian national team developed their first smaller chances early on, so that Albania could not find their way into the game at the beginning of the game. After only two minutes of play Serbia received for a challenge on Lorik Cana to Dušan Tadić a free-kick, from which emerged the first smaller scoring chance in the game. The first seven minutes of the game were already hard fought. The first real chance to score was again Tadić, who shot the ball past the goal. In the rest of the game there were more free kicks for Serbia before Zoran Tošić in the 15th minute and Branislav Ivanović missed the Albanian goal a minute later.

The game remained highly competitive until further notice. Many fouls on both sides were the result. In the meantime, the Albanian selection managed to take pressure off themselves and shift the game to half of the Serbian team. Ansi Agolli saw the first warning in the game in the 34th minute . A minute later it was Branislav Ivanović who was cautioned for a foul on Ermir Lenjani . Between the 35th and 39th minute Albania had several bigger chances to score through Lorik Cana, Emir Lenjani and Bekim Balaj .

42 minutes were played when a drone with a flag appeared over the field, whereupon Atkinson stopped the game. The flag showed the Albanian eagle on the outline of Greater Albania , as demanded by the Albanian nationalists , the lettering "autochthonous" ( English for "native"), the independence date of Albania (November 28, 1912) as well as portraits of the former Albanian nationalist leaders Isa Boletini and Ismail Qemali . As a result, the already heated mood before the game escalated. Stefan Mitrović from SC Freiburg fished the flag and drone from the air with one jump after it circled over the heads of the raging audience for minutes. Shortly afterwards, the Basel Taulant Xhaka rushed to him as one of the first Albanians and tried to take it from him again. However, he was quickly pushed away. In the end, it was his teammate Balaj who grabbed the flag and hurried to the sidelines, whereupon the situation finally got out of hand and a scuffle broke out between the Albanian and Serbian players. A few of the angry spectators in the stadium - including the Serbian hooligan and right-wing extremist Ivan Bogdanov - finally stormed the pitch and sometimes attacked players, with Bogdanov himself only marginally involved, so Atkinson asked both teams to go into the dressing room, until the situation calmed down. Although 3,500 Serb forces were on site, the situation could not be calmed down.

After a 45-minute break, Atkinson decided not to whistle the game again. According to Serbian reports, the Albanian players refused to continue the game. As a condition, they would have required that all spectators leave the stadium. The Serbian team entered the field an hour after the game was abandoned to bid farewell to the visitors, while the Albanian team did not show up.

Serbia Albania
SerbiaSerbia
European Championship qualifier
October 14, 2014 in Belgrade ( Partizana Stadium )
Result: 0: 0 (score at the time the game was abandoned in the 42nd minute)
Spectators: 32,887 (sold out)
Referee: Martin Atkinson ( England ) EnglandEngland 
Match report
AlbaniaAlbania
Vladimir Stojković - Branislav Ivanović , Stefan Mitrović , Matija Nastasić , Aleksandar Kolarov - Nemanja Gudelj , Nemanja Matić - Zoran Tošić , Filip Đuričić , Dušan Tadić - Darko Lazović
Coach: Dick Advocaat ( Netherlands ) NetherlandsNetherlands 		 Etrit Berisha - Elseid Hysaj , Lorik Cana , Mergim Mavraj , Ansi Agolli - Andi Lila , Taulant Xhaka , Burim Kukeli , Amir Abrashi , Ermir Lenjani - Bekim Balaj
Trainer: Gianni De Biasi ( Italy ) ItalyItaly 
yellow cards Mitrović (35.) yellow cards Agolli (34.)

background

The flag that the drone hoisted showed the outline of Greater Albania, a state targeted by Albanian nationalists that encompassed parts of Greece , Montenegro , Macedonia , Serbia and Kosovo . This became a reality for a short time under Italian rule during the Second World War . In 1912, other already existing states were able to prevail in the Balkan Wars , so that Albania received its current state borders ( see Greater Albania ). Also were on the flag of the images of Ismail Qemali and Isa Boletini that in 1912 the independence of Albania from the Ottoman Empire had reached, and (dt. The inscription "Autochthonous" indigenous ) to see. Even after the end of the Second World War, both states, Serbia now as part of Socialist Yugoslavia , went different political paths: After Albania rejected the offer of the Yugoslav partisan leader Josip Broz Tito to become part of Yugoslavia, now also Socialist Albania developed under dictator Enver Hoxha close political paths Relations with Stalin and later with Mao Zedong as well as an ultra-orthodox form of communism , while the Yugoslav confederation became a non-aligned state after the falling out with Stalin with a kind of goulash communism , a milder form of communism with extensive freedom of travel and modest prosperity. Since Tito's death in 1980, the conflict has come to a head, which would later end in the Kosovo War. The war in Kosovo continues to add to the tension between the two states. It was conducted in 1999 between the Albanian paramilitary UÇK and the then police and military forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia , before NATO intervened with air strikes , which meant the end of the open war. However, the ethnic conflict is still unresolved.

The left-leaning Hungarian newspaper Népszava referred to the background for the action on the Kosovo war and the declaration of independence of Kosovo in 2008. This game had ruined the EU's longstanding efforts with the two governments to improve relations between Serbia and Kosovo. The Bulgarian newspaper Duma described Albania and Serbia as "the greatest archenemies on the continent". According to the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , the abandonment of the game by the drone had led to the biggest chauvinist riots among Serbs and Albanians in recent years.

Reactions

According to several Serbian media reports, Olsi Rama , the brother of the Albanian Prime Minister, was responsible for controlling the drone, which the latter denies. According to Serbian media reports, Olsi Rama had meanwhile been arrested by the Serbian police, while he himself claims that he was not arrested but only subjected to "verbal pressure", was stopped several times by the police and then later returned with the Albanian team Tirana could fly. That same evening, an unknown group of fans confessed to calling themselves “The Smugglers of Skopje”. In the stadium was also the Serbian hooligan and right-wing extremist Ivan Bogdanov , who took part in the storm. Bogdanov was partly responsible for the demolition of the international match of the Serbian national team against Italy in Genoa in October 2010, when he stormed the pitch and instigated a hunt against the Serbian goalkeeper Vladimir Stojković . Already at this game he made an anti-Albanian appearance by burning an Albanian flag.

The Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić spoke of a “pre-planned political provocation”. He told the Serbian newspaper Blic that “Serbia is not responsible for the abandonment of the game”. The EU had put enormous pressure on Serbia to allow Albanian spectators to enter the stadium. The President of the Serbian Football Association Goran Milanović also compared the provocation with "the possible display of the flag of the Third Reich with the head of Hitler in Israel ". The association said that UEFA was complicit in the events in Belgrade, as it did not consider it necessary to separate the teams at the draw despite the political tension between the two countries. UEFA defended this decision as there was no political tension between Serbia and Albania at the time of the group draw.

"The match is then analyzed by Uefa's international committee. When the draw was made there was no negative reaction from either side at the time. But both associations agreed not to take their own supporters to away matches. Uefa fully supported this move. [...] All the conditions were met at the time. There was no clear reason why these teams should be kept apart. "

- A spokesman for UEFA on its decision not to separate Serbia and Albania

“The game will be analyzed by the UEFA international committee. When the draw was made there was no negative reaction from either side. Both associations agreed not to bring their own fans to the away games. UEFA has fully accepted this. […] At this point in time, all conditions were clarified. There was no apparent reason why both teams should be separated. "

The Serbian head of state Tomislav Nikolić said that Albania would need "decades, if not centuries, to become a normal state". The Serbian newspaper Kurir describes the incident in Belgrade as a "declaration of war on Serbia". The Belgrade newspaper Nase Novine describes the game as a "devilish plan of Tirana".

Valdet Rama , player from 1860 Munich , described in a report by TZ Online that the players of the Albanian team had to deal with hostility even before the game. So you couldn't hear the Albanian anthem before the game because of the crowd protests. And before that, the Serbian audience had intoned a “nationalist march”. According to Rama, two or three Albanian players were injured. Some Serbian players, Rama said, tried to protect Albanian players. The Football Association of Albania also complained. Accordingly, the team bus was pelted with stones by Serbian supporters before the game. In addition, the players of Albania were thrown with objects while warming up. Viewers of the game are said to have shouted "Kill the Albanians" several times. The association also accused the security forces of beating the players in the stadium. This was reported by Altin Lala , assistant coach of the Albanian national team. Edmond Kapllani from FSV Frankfurt testified that the Serbian viewers threw bottles and stones at him.

The two Albanian politicians Niko Peleshi and Lindita Nikolla welcomed the team to a cheering crowd in Tirana the following day. They called the players "heroes of the day". The nation can be proud of "the values ​​that the players have shown on the pitch". The Albanian government condemned the action and called on the Serbian government to bring the perpetrators to justice and condemn them.

In Pristina , the capital of Kosovo , hundreds celebrated the game with fireworks and car parades. In Mitrovica, on the other hand, security forces had to separate angry supporters from both fan camps. In Vienna there were clashes between 50 Albanians and 200 Serbs. Two days after the abandoned game, Albanian bakeries were set on fire in northern Serbia and Serbian flags in Mitrovica.

A planned state visit by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama on October 22, 2014 - the first visit by an Albanian politician to Serbia in almost 70 years - was in jeopardy. On October 20, it was postponed to November 10, 2014 due to "several clear differences of opinion" regarding the canceled international match.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter wrote on the social network Twitter that he will not tolerate the events of the evening in Belgrade. UEFA President Michel Platini also described the incidents as "inexcusable". He said football shouldn't be mixed up with politics. The Greek Foreign Minister Evangelos Venizelos called on Serbia and Albania to restore stability in the region "with declarations and deeds". The world wrote that football surrendered to politics .

Three days after the abandoned game, TV images showed an alleged renewed use of a drone during the Albanian league game between KS Flamurtari Vlora and KF Skënderbeu Korça . However, the game was not abandoned and ended in a 1-1 draw. In the Serbian SuperLiga , spectators burned Albanian flags during the city derby Partizan Belgrade against Red Star .

Consequences

On October 15, 2014, UEFA announced that investigations had been initiated against the Serbian and Albanian football associations . Serbia was investigated for the firing of fireworks, spectator riots, storming of the square by spectators, insufficient organization of security forces and the use of laser pointers. The Albanian Association had to justify itself for refusing to continue playing and displaying banned banners. The UEFA Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body dealt with the case on October 23, 2014, and the verdict was pronounced one day later. The game was rated 3-0 for Serbia. The Serbian team got the three points immediately deducted. In addition, the association had to play two home games closed to the public, so-called " ghost games". Both associations were also fined 100,000 euros.

The two associations appealed the UEFA decision. The Danish Football Association also criticized the penalty imposed on Serbia, as the ghost games prevented Danish fans from going to the game in Belgrade, even if they had already bought tickets for the game. On October 26, 2014 and November 2, 2014, almost 1,000 supporters of the Albanian national team demonstrated in front of the UEFA headquarters in Nyon because of the verdict. According to the Tyrolean daily , which refers to a report by the Geneva-based Kosovar newspaper Presheva Jonë , native Albanians from Italy , France and Germany also traveled to the demonstrations.

The UEFA Appellate Body confirmed the decision on December 2, 2014. The scoring of the game, the deduction of points, the ghost games and the fines were confirmed.

The highest court of appeal in the form of the International Sports Court (CAS) revised the rating of the game by UEFA on July 10, 2015 in favor of Albania. UEFA was unable to demonstrate to the International Court of Sports that there was a clear and unambiguous instruction from the referee that the game should be restarted. Thus, the blame for the abandonment of the game lies with the Serbian Association and consequently the game is rated as a 3-0 defeat for Serbia. All other UEFA judgments were confirmed, including the deduction of three points for the Serbian association.

Second leg in Elbasan

On October 8, 2015, just under a year after the scandal game, the second leg took place in the Elbasan Arena . The game ended in a 2-0 win for the Serbian side after two late goals from Aleksandar Kolarov and Adem Ljajić .

Special preparations were made in the run-up to the second leg. Ismail Morina, the alleged pilot of the drone that led to the game being abandoned in Belgrade, had been arrested by the Albanian police the day before in Tirana for illegally possessing weapons. The Serbian team bus was pelted with stones on the way from the airport to the hotel. Although no one was injured, according to Albanian reports, the Serbian Foreign Minister lodged a complaint with the Albanian embassy in Belgrade.

Around 1,500 police officers were on duty on match day. 70 Serbian students attended the game in Elbasan as guest fans. No incidents were reported from Albania; Elsewhere - including Zurich - Albanians and Serbs attacked each other after the game.

Individual evidence

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