By andi balla
The shameful events and Genoa, Italy this week, in which Serb hooligans interrupted a football match between Serbia and Italy, show how a sporting event can go wrong when Balkan-style politics is thrown in the mixture.
Hooliganism is nothing new to European football. The English were renowned for it in their heyday of violence-prone fans, but what was seen in Genoa this week as something deeper than a bunch of alcohol-fueled angry men looking to cause mayhem.
The actions of the Serb ultras were politically-motivated and fueled to serve a small group of people who would like the Balkans to return to the mid and late 90s, where war and criminal profits thrive.
The events in Italy were premeditated and planed, and were done to cause as much harm as possible to the image of Serbia and its western-looking government. There are Serbs that are very angry about how things turned out for Serbia after the orgy of war and destruction fueled by certain sections of Serb society. The events in Italy were obviously done for short-term political gains of this part of Serb society, which the ultras represent.
It is unfortunately another example that Balkan societies still have a lot to do get closer to the European values they aspire to embrace.
Football matches among competing neighbors in this part of the world are often transformed into an arena where national pride is to be defended, where somehow the football match symbolizes a place to cure the inferiority complexes of the region’s small countries.
And often things turn political and nationalistic. Albania is no exception, though it is an interesting commentary that most of the ultras for Albania’s national team were born in the former Yugoslavia, where suppression and war have created their own brand of fans with a political agenda.
One of the elements of the Serb riot in the stadium that made headlines around the world was a public burning of the Albanian flag, another action of the Serb ultras to remind us they |harbor no love for the Albanian people (nothing new there).
However, in a typical Balkan-style reaction to the situation, a wave of patriotism hit Albania and Albanians wherever they might be. Half of the Albanian Facebook members changed their profile pictures to the Albanian flag for a day, and the usual vitriolic commentary about Serbia and Kosovo hit the online forums with renewed vigor.
And then there was a teenage-fueled protest in front of the Serb Embassy in Tirana, where there were reports that a Serb flag was burned. The protesters really missed the point there.
Another problem that might come up, and that it will likely affect Albania is an analysis of how the Serb fans were allowed to travel to Italy. Obviously thanks to visa-free travel regime that the Serbs have been enjoying for about a year, they did not have to go through the extensive process of applying for a visa, something that might have prohibited the most violent among them from making it to Italy. It’s a really bad example of what comes out of visa-free travel out of the Balkans, one that no doubt the skeptics in EU countries will add to their arsenal when trying to delay European integration for the region.
