By Andrew Warshaw
April 12 – FIFA has appointed a temporary independent committee to try and solve the Presidential impasse faced by Bosnia-Herzogovina, suspended from the international arena since early April.
In an unprecedented move, a six-man so-called “normalisation committee” has been put in place and will act as the federation’s executive committee.
FIFA and UEFA imposed sanctions after Bosnia-Herzogovina refused to replace their rotating three-man Presidency – made up of a Bosniak, Croat and Serb – with a single leader.
No team from the country can take part in international competition, club or national, until informed otherwise.
Bosnia-Herzegovina currently sit fourth in Euro 2012 qualifying Group D, but will not be able to fulfil their next fixture against Romania on June 3 unless they bow to FIFA and UEFA’s demands.
In a statement, FIFA said that the interim committee would establish a “road map” for solving the current dispute but that all ties with previous members of the Bosnia-Herzogovina leadership would have to be cut forthwith.
It was also charged with ensuring that all the federation’s debts are paid up before moving to a second phase by organising fresh elections.
Once these elections have been held, the mandate of the normalisation committee, whose members were not named, would expire.
Each of the three ethnicities in Bosnia-Herzegovina have been holding the office of President, vice-president and second vice-president for 16 months at a time, but FIFA said this was against the rules.
“This system has led to a number of significant problems, including a lack of accountability and poor financial management,” said FIFA.
“The FFBH has some major financial risks, which may even lead to bankruptcy due to its debts towards the tax authorities, but the former FFBH leadership has done very little to improve the financial situation during the past months.
“Furthermore, the decision-making process of the various statutory bodies (Executive Committee, committees and legal bodies of the FFBH) has often been misused in recent years by the various appointed/elected members of the three ethnic groups.
“With the current statutory provisions, they have been able to easily block the decision-making process by leaving a meeting (no quorum of presence) or by not voting (no decision-making quorum), something which has caused important decisions not to be taken or to be delayed for several months.”
FIFA said both they and UEFA had clearly stated that abolishing the current system of presidency and replacing it with a single president elected for four years, as is the case at all member associations, was compulsory.
The request was apparently first sent to Bosnia-Herzogovina eight years ago but both authorities have now lost patience after allowing the federation several years to make the transition to a single president alone.
FIFA’s statements about disciplinary matters are usually succinct and lacking in explanation but this one provided unprecedented detail.
“The UEFA and FIFA Executive Committees decided in October 2010 to establish a final deadline of 31 March 2011 for the FFBH by which to adopt the new statutes or face an automatic suspension as from 1 April 2011.
“Furthermore, FIFA also decided that if such a measure was adopted, a normalisation committee would be appointed to replace the current FFBH Executive Committee in order to solve this situation which is damaging Bosnian football.
“On 29 March 2011, the FFBH held an extraordinary general assembly during which the new statutory texts were rejected for a second time.
“Therefore, the FIFA and UEFA decisions of October 2010 came into force as from 1 April 2011 and the FFBH is currently suspended until further notice.
“Due to the fact that a majority of the current members of the FFBH Executive Committee, including the members of the Presidency, have openly and publicly opposed the adoption of the FFBH statutes, FIFA – with the support of UEFA – is of the opinion that this FFBH Executive Committee, and in particular its presidency, is not able to lead the FFBH towards a successful revision of its statutes.
“Therefore both organisations have been working together on the establishment of a normalisation committee to replace the current elected FFBH Executive Committee members (including the members of the FFBH Presidency).”
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