By Andrew Warshaw
April 1 – Bosnia-Herzegovina was suspended from international football today in arguably the most high profile case of a European country being sanctioned by FIFA.
Football’s world governing regularly suspend members when warnings haven’t been heeded and when politicians get involved in running the sport, but few European nations of such stature have ever been thrown out.
A statement from FIFA said the decision to suspend Bosnia-Herzegovina was taken by both them and UEFA, meaning the country will have to stop playing European qualifiers with immediate effect.
According to a FIFA statement the national federation “did not adopt the statutes according to Fifa and Uefa requirements” before the March 31 deadline set by both governing bodies.
Only 22 out of the 54 delegates present at a general assembly meeting of the Bosnia-Herzegovina federation on Tuesday voted in favour of amending the rules.
“The FFBH representative and club teams are no longer entitled to take part in international competitions as of April 1, 2011 and until the aforementioned problem is resolved,” a FIFA statement said.
“This also means that, as of April 1, 2011, no FFBH official or representative may participate in any international match or event.”
“FIFA and UEFA deeply regret that this decision had to be taken and will meet shortly to discuss the next steps required to try to bring the FFBH back into the football family as soon as possible.”
At the recent UEFA Congress in Paris, a spokeswoman for the Bosnia-Herzegovina federation said it would be a “disaster” if they were suspended.
At the root of the problem is the order by FIFA and UEFA to cut the number of federation presidents from three to one, a complex situation that reflects the political makeup of the country and the different factions involved as a result of the Bosnian War in 1995.
Unlike other associations, the Bosnia-Herzegovina FA consists of two associations, one Bosnian Serb and the other a combination of Bosnians and Bosnian Croats, with a member of each group holding one of the respective presidential positions – a Bosnian, a Serb and a Croat.
All three groupings are firmly against the idea of a single President, fearing that their autonomy would be at risk.
One idea was to rotate the presidency but this does not appear to have been accepted by FIFA and UEFA.
Unless the three-man presidency situation is resolved and a single representative installed, the suspension will have a significant impact on the country’s hopes of qualifying for next year’s European Championship finals in Ukraine and Poland.
Reacting to the ban, coach Safet Susic said UEFA should intervene to help the country out of an intractable problem which was unique because of historical divisions.
“I think UEFA should come up with a solution and impose it on the Bosnian Football Federation because there is absolutely no chance that the NFSBiH (national federation) might find a way out of the present deadlock,” he said.
“These people are incapable of running the NFSBiH properly, although this situation is partly a result of political orders because Bosnia is an ethnically divided country where a dysfunctional system has now caught up with football.”
Under the present statues, a Serb, a Croat and an ethnic Muslim take turns in running the body, but Susic said his players were the innocent victims.
“Denying the players a chance to perform on the big stage through no fault of their own is like sending innocent people to prison,” he said.
The Bosnians are well placed to reach their first major tournament as an independent nation, having collected seven points from four games in Group D after Saturday’s 2-1 home win over Romania.
“We can only hope that UEFA and FIFA will show some level of understanding for our political situation and come up with a feasible model because, quite frankly, I don’t see another way,” Susic told Reuters.
“It would be a disaster to end the qualifiers by getting kicked out of the competition and it would affect not just the players and football, which is the only good and productive thing Bosnia has at the moment.”
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