16 Oct 14
The chaotic scenes at the Serbia-Albania football match, which had to be called off, mark an inauspicious prologue to the Albanian Prime Minister’s visit to Belgrade.

Besar Likmeta, Gordana Andric
BIRN

Tirana, Belgrade
Edi Rama’s long planned official visit to Serbia next week - the first such visit by an Albanian Prime Minister to Belgrade in decades - will take place in a difficult atmosphere following the bizarre scenes at Tuesday’s Euro 2016 qualifier.

After a drone flew over the stadium bearing a map of Greater Albania, fighting erupted on the pitch and some Albanian players were assaulted by Serbian fans who had invaded the field.

The first football match ever held between Albania and Serbia had to be called off in the 41st minute. The score was 0:0 at the time.
UEFA has said its disciplinary commission will decide on October 23 whether to punish the teams.

No Albanian Prime Minister has visited Belgrade since 1946, just after the end of the Second World War.

Relations between Serbia and Albania have traditionally been poor. When Albania proclaimed independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1913, Serbia – which wanted direct access to the Adriatic Sea – did its best to ensure it had as little territory as possible.

With Russian support, it obtained the whole of the former Ottoman province of Kosovo, which Albanians wanted to include in their new country, most of whose population was Albanian.

The fate of Kosovo has been a source of deep discord between the two nations ever since. Even today, many Serbs bitterly resent the loss of Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008.

Reacting to Tuesday’s football mayhem, the Serbian authorities denied responsibility and called the decision to send a drone flying an Albanian flag over the stadium a grave provocation.

The ministry insisted that Serbia “could not be held responsible for the irresponsible provocations by its Albanian guests and will continue to work on the development of good neighborly relations, believing that this is the only way to overcome potential problems”.

Aleksandar Vucic, Prime Minister, made the same point, calling the drone incident a “political provocation” whose aim was to humiliate the Serbian people and destabilize both Serbia and the Balkans.

He added that while he awaited EU comments on the affair, he would not accept that responsibility lay on both side.

“I informed our partners five times of a possible scenario of provocation by officials from Albania… it was clear that they came with an unequivocal intention to provoke,” Vucic said.

Prime Minister Vucic also maintained that if Serbian fans showed up in Albania carrying the flag of Greater Serbia it would be seen as a scandal of world proportions.

Vucic’s office further raised the temperature by claiming that the brother of Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama was personally responsible for the stunt with the drone.

Olsi Rama had been present at the game, holding the remote control to the drone that flew over the stadium, Vucic’s office told America’s CNN TV station

Olsi Rama described the accusation as absurd. “I am very disgusted by the allegation of my having had any involvement in the piloting of the drone," Rama told CNN on Wednesday.
It was a “premeditated and pre-planned political provocation, intended to cause riots in Belgrade that would cast a shadow on the fact that Serbia is successfully fostering cooperation in the region,” the Serbian Foreign Ministry said.

He said he had been present at the game taking pictures of the match from the VIP suite.

“I had no involvement in the drone. When the banner came up, we had no idea, we thought some Serbians set it up,” he added.

Tomislav Nikolic, Serbian President, also claimed that the drone incident was intended to destabilize the region.

"Sporting events are not the place for provocative political messages," he said, adding that the attempted promotion of the idea of a Greater Albania was bound to cause a reaction in the stadium and throughout Serbia.

According to the President, Serbia had done everything it could to put the past behind it and develop friendly relations – but Albania was not reciprocating.

“It is obvious that Albania will need decades, if not centuries, to become a normal country without hatred for Serbia,” Nikolic said, demanding that Albanian top officials condemn the drone incident.

Albanian officials have rejected the Serbian allegations, calling them an attempt to duck responsibility for the violence shown on the pitch.

“We are sorry that the highest Serbian authorities have yet not found the courage to distance themselves from or condemn acts of violence and hate, which were openly manifested against our national symbols and the symbols of the Atlantic Alliance,” the Albanian Foreign Minister Ditmir Bushati.

He said the “extremist behaviour” shown by the Serbs in the stadium was “trying to keep our people hostage to a painful past”.

Bushati urged Serbia to desist from further inflammatory statements and provide proof for its accusations, underlining that Albania was willing to cooperate in an investigation of the events.

“We call on the Serbian authorities…  to condemn unequivocally the use of violence and bring to justice all those responsible for the incidents that occurred before, during and after the match,” he said.

“We encourage the Serbian authorities to investigate the events thoroughly, to provide facts supporting their allegations and to find the people who were responsible, instead of engaging in disinformation and propaganda with the purpose of involving the highest Albanian authorities,” Bushati added.

In spite of the exchange of accusations, some involving his own brother, Prime Minister Rama made it clear he still intended to go to Serbia.

In an interview for Voice of America, Rama called the accusations coming from Serbia regrettable but noted that he would continue with his scheduled visit to Belgrade.

“It’s regretful that the appearance of one flag in a football field, in a pitch with thousands of Serbian flags, is being used as an alibi for what happened,” he said.

“Football should not become a political instrument and no country’s politics can be led by what happens on a football pitch,” Rama added.