The whole notion that sport is, like the EU, an alternative to war, took a bit of a battering at the Euro 2016 qualifier in Belgrade’s Partizan stadium last night. The match had to be called off after 40 minutes when a small drone, bearing the flag of greater Albania (with, presumably, the flag of Serbia as an Ottoman province in the corner) flew over everyone’s heads. One of the Serbian players, Stefan Mitrovic, made a grab at it, some Albanian players tried to rescue it and the most fabulous melee ensued. The brother of the Albanian prime minister, Olsi Rama, was initially arrested in the VIP box; I gather he produced a US passport, to the surprise of the police.
A little group of Macedonian Albanians has now claimed responsibility for the episode. Known as the Smugglers, their motto is We Don’t Talk; We Do. And they did. It turns out the little drone was actually moved from outside the stadium, while someone inside was directing it on a smartphone. Which just goes to show, you can stuff football matches with as many police as you like – and they were everywhere at the Partizan – but you can’t trump technology.
It’s a bit like the way the conflict in the former Yugoslavia started, on the football pitch. It was before my time but in the febrile period before war actually broke out in 1992, Croatian fans used to taunt Serbs during matches between Red Star Belgrade and Dynamo Zagreb by chanting: ‘Kosovo’s a Republic, Kosovo’s a Republic.’ The Serbs went berserk, including, unfortunately, an individual called Arkan, much involved with the Belgrade team, who was later better known as the leader of a group of paramilitaries in Bosnia called the Tigers.
And duly, last night’s deplorable scenes went down really well in Bosnia. In Sarajevo they were tweeting: Forget the JNA (the Yugoslav National Army); what you want is the AAA (the Albanian Airforce). Just like old times. Can’t wait for the re-match.
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