By Mark Baber
October 9 – Serbia’s team coach was attacked by stones, smashing one of the windows, ahead of Thursday’s Euro2016 qualifier in the central Albanian town of Elbasan. Violence was predictable following the abandonment of the earlier fixture in which a drone with a Greater Albania flag was flown over the stadium in the Serbian capital causing crowd trouble and the Albanian team to refuse to continue the match.
No one in the coach was hurt in the incident but doubts were raised over the security being offered the players and the Serbian foreign ministry prepared a protest note which the Albanian ambassador refused to receive.
For his part, Tomislav Karadzic, the president of Serbia’s football federation, commended the Albanian police for securing the route from the airport to the hotel, saying, “several rocks were hurled from the crowd towards the bus. A sizeable one landed in the vicinity of the second or third row of seats, where our players were sitting.”
On the day the Serbian team managed to win the game 2-0, with two goals in added on time, denting Albania’s hopes of qualifying for Euro 2016 and restoring some pride to their own campaign.
After the incidents in Belgrade, the initial fixture was eventually awarded as a 3-0 victory to Albania and the Serbs were also deducted 3 points after a judgement of the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned an original decision by UEFA to award the game to Serbia.
CAS cited “the security lapses of the organisers and acts of violence exerted on the Albanian players by the Serbian fans” in making their decision, notwithstanding the flying of the drone and the actions of the Albanian players in defence of the Greater Albania flag, which preceded the bulk of the trouble.
It remains to be seen if Albania, who now play Armenia on Sunday in a must-win game, receive any punishment for the attack on the Serbian team coach.
It is noteworthy that, aside from the stoning incident and chants in favour of the drone operator who was banned from the stadium for this match after being arrested with a pistol and 36 match tickets in his possession, the match went off peaceably due to it having been moved to a relatively small stadium with a heavily vetted audience and thanks to the 1,800 police on duty.
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