A photograph taken in a Serbian locker room during the World Cup shows a flag of Serbia integrating Kosovo, with the mention “There will be no surrender”.
Mo12345lemonde with AP and AFP
FIFA opened, Saturday, November 26, a disciplinary procedure against the Serbian football federation, due to the flag placing Kosovo in Serbia exhibited in the locker room of “White Eagles” before their match lost Thursday against Brazil (2 -0) at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. FIFA does not cite any infraction precise to its disciplinary code, but is based on the general obligation of “fair play and non-violence” imposed on the thirty-two participants in the tournament.
The scale of sanctions which can be inflicted on the federations goes from a closed meeting to a defeat by package, without FIFA indicates where the gravity of the fault reproached is located.
“Chauvine rhetoric”
The incriminated photography shows a Kosovo card printed on a square of white fabric hanging on two perpetrators. Kosovo is struck with the Flag of Serbia and the inscription “There will be no surrender”. The broadcast of the shot led to an official protest on Friday of Kosovo, via his Minister of Sports, Hajrulla Ceku, who denounced “shameful images” relaying “hateful, xenophobic and genocidal messages”.
In a tweet commenting on the image, the Vice-Minister of Kosovare Culture, Youth and Sports, Daulina Osmani, judged that “the chauvine rhetoric of Serbia against the Republic of Kosovo, through sport And in an official enclosure, is an aggressive act against human and sporting values, which must be condemned. Doing nothing is, in itself, a very telling position “.
The @ffk_ks is a full member of @fifacom.
Serbia’s Chauvinistic Rhetoric Against the rep.of Kosova Through Sport,… https://t.co/1st8i2bden
“We expect concrete actions from FIFA, of which Kosovo is a full -fledged member,” said the Minister of Sports. The Kosovare Football Federation (FFK) announced that it has filed a complaint with FIFA against “the aggressive action of Serbia”. This act “has no place in sporting events and even less inside speakers in which the largest world football event takes place,” denounced the FFK.
Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, unilaterally. The Serbian government, supported by China and Russia, refused to recognize it, unlike the United States and most European countries.