Exclusive: UEFA "hopping mad" at FIFA's decision to allow Kosovo partial informal status

By Andrew Warshaw

June 22 – FIFA and UEFA are on a collision course over whether to allow Kosovo the right to play international matches, with European officials furious at what they see as a clear attempt by the world governing body to undermine their regulations.

Last month FIFA’s top brass agreed to lift the blanket ban on Kosovo’s national and club teams though, crucially, European members either voted against or abstained.

insideworldfootball has now learned that FIFA are due to discuss the issue again at an extraordinary Executive Committee meeting in Zurich on July 17, a decision that has prompted UEFA to hold emergency talks beforehand at their own Executive Committee meeting in Kiev on June 30 in order to draw up a plan of action.

“UEFA wants to discuss this before FIFA does,” one senior voice in world football told insideworldfootball.

“The members are hopping mad.”

UEFA President Michel Platini, it is understood, believes FIFA’s decision to partially bring Kosovo into the fold was “purely political” and is adamant to prevent UEFA statutes, which require member countries to have United Nations (UN) recognition, from being in any way compromised.

To make matters even more contentious, insideworldfootball has also been told that private discussions have been taking place for Kosovo’s first fixture to be against Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus which also has no official international footballing or political status.

“This could open a can of worms and UEFA are keen to nip it in the bud,” said the afore-mentioned source.

Other countries that have broken away since the breakup of Yugoslavia – Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia – all have their own national teams.

But Serbian footballing authorities have expressed outrage at allowing Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, partial entry into world football by being allowed to play matches against FIFA member countries.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter has already met with Football Association of Serbia (FSS) officials after which FIFA backtracked slightly, saying the “next steps” for Kosovo football “will be further discussed with all relevant parties”.

FIFA general secretary Jérôme Valcke has already said, however, that the decision to give Kosovo partial acceptance was perfectly legal since it conformed to FIFA’s own statutes which foresee the possibility that FIFA members may play against non-members – such as the Football Federation of Kosovo (FFK) – provided FIFA gives its authorisation.

The July 17 FIFA meeting in Zurich will also finally appoint the chairmen of its new-look independent Ethics Committee, to be split into two as part of Blatter’s road map to reform.

The panel was of the main recommendations of Swiss law professor Mark Pieth (pictured above)’s Independent Governance Committee following a year of unprecedented FIFA scandal that engulfed over a third of its Executive Committee members and led to a lifetime ban for former Asian supremo Mohamed Bin Hammam in the biggest crisis to hit FIFA in its 108-year history.

Pieth’s body recommended the Ethics Committee be restructured with two separate chambers – one to investigate cases of alleged corruption and the other to adjudicate on them.

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