Europe’s biased reporting on Serbia vs. Albania
Google the game right now and you’ll find all the top papers reporting last night’s events with an obvious bias. They set the stage late, when the drone comes into play – no pun intended.
There’s a big problem with that as trouble had already emerged before the remote controlled device appeared (the horror, the shock of having your national symbols at a soccer match!) The game was at a halt due to frenzied chanting calling for the killing of Albanians, objects having been thrown into the field, including smoke and fire bombs, and burning of NATO flags. All because the Albanian team had gained some traction and advantage and the crowd was ill at ease. It was at this point the device with the map appeared and mayhem ensued.
Also, it must be noted that Albanian players had been hit by random objects when entering the stadium, before there was any game or any flag. Verbal and physical violence by the Serb fans was used against the Albanian team long before the drone came into the scene – which did not cause the mayhem, only escalated it – giving the likes of bloodthirsty Serb Nationalist Ivan Bogdanov and his thugs a pretext for more violence. You may recall Bogdanov was the one who burned the Albanian flag during a match between Italy and Serbia in 2010. Why was he there? There was supposed to be maximum security from the Serb forces yet Bogdanov was there and so were his thugs, with a barrel of benzene no less.
“It is unquestionable that our players were attacked prior to the game,” stated one Albanian journalist.
Which is why the Albanian team had to be police-escorted straight to the stadium, together with the visiting journalists, and not set foot in the town.
And according to the Washington Post: “Even before the drone incident, the atmosphere was heated. Fans of Serbia burned NATO flags. Riot police were already clashing with fans. Nationalistic chants rumbled in the stadium. It was a mess, made worse by the drone.”
Most media however focused entirely on the drone incident, ignoring also that Serbia and UEFA had been mistreating the Albanian side before they even arrived in Belgrade, by banning visiting fans with the strong declaration that if any Albanian civilian was caught in the stadium they would be “arrested and prosecuted”. They first banned only Kosovar-Albanians (And I must stop here and remind certain reporters that Kosovo has been an independent country since 2008, and is no longer a “disputed Serb province”, in fact it never historically was, but what would a garden variety sport reporter know?), and then they banned Albanians from Albania.
And so one fan decided to express his support for his team during the halt, and what happened? You saw. The homogenous Serb stadium of 32,000 was ready to clash with the 11 players from the Albanian side.
The reaction in Albania when they were told they were banned from Serbia?:
But why? We want to be there and root for our team. Because we’re Albanian? We would never do this to the Serbs in the next match, so why?
Albanians had done nothing to deserve this racist, discriminatory and degrading treatment, coming from an historical aggressor of the region. The audacity! But shhhhht, never mention that. Most Serbs live in the self-delusion that THEY are victims of some horrible Albanian act yet Albanians have literally done nothing save for the Kosovo Liberation Army which was a guerrilla force defending Albanian civilians as they were being executed and decapitated by Serb special forces high on everything they could find. But again shtttttt because according to most newspapers they were “insurgents”. Never-thee-mind the decades of Serb oppression, discrimination and lastly, after it was done shelling Croatia and cutting down Bosnia, its war against Kosovo. No. Sht!! We don’t want to hear about it.
Serbs are our Christian European Brothers, they did nothing, even if they did start 3 wars at the dawn of the 21st century!
We’ll just forget about that and keep beating on the victim, shall we? It’s what we do best, us Serbs I mean. We are masters of self-victimization, self-delusion and twisters of history. Even when the facts of our barbarism are photographically staring in our faces.
So let’s move onto the game now that I’ve set the stage a bit differently.
Albanian players and journalists arrived in Serbia yesterday only to be greeted by masked special Serb forces. They then spent most of the time locked up in hotels as Belgrade’s police and special forces lined up the streets.
Best part? They had been forced to change their shirt names from “Albania” to “Digitalb,” Albania’s biggest Satellite TV provider. To cry or to laugh? The team was being systematically psychologically demoralized. Stripped of its name, dehumanized. Again: WHY?
Newspapers in Serbia had for weeks blown the match out of proportion, politically charging it with racist overtones and fear-mongering. The Serb population was being pumped up for war, again; What one Albanian reporter described as “Shameful.”
We in Albania were just waiting to watch a match. We in Albania were admittedly angry that we were mistreated and denied access to the game and the chance to root for our team. We felt discriminated, yet again, by Serbia – our long standing “friendly” neighbor – and UEFA. There were cries by the young as to why on earth the Albanian Football Federation agreed to such vile and racist demands.
So there was our team. In a town lined with police and national guard, alone, no fans, discriminated against for no good reason other than being Albanian and Serbia’s fear of not being able to control its uncontrollable hate-filled soccer fanatics had there been Albanian fans present. You can’t control your fans? Why is that? Are they that hate-filled towards Albanians? Are they that violent and easily provoked to violence? Yes. As last night showed, it took one Albanian fan’s stunt of waving a drone-controlled flag over the pitch to drive an entire stadium wild and to a psychotic frenzy, chanting “Kill, cut-up Albanians!”
As I mentioned, the game was already at a halt before the device showed up because of the wild and hostile behavior of the Serb fans. Once the drone appeared then they just went insane and literally spilled onto the field, attacking the players.
All hell broke loose with the Albanian team being attacked by random objects, hooligans busting out into the field and as the Albanian team captain, Lorik Cana, confirms, even by stadium staff and stadium security forces (see photos below). Cana also confirms that stadium police pounded on Albanian players in the tunnel area as they were running for shelter.
While the team was waiting to fly back home, they were locked in the locker room until streets had cleared, with police searching their belongings for a remote control, apparently thinking a teammate had controlled the drone. They were injured and psychologically traumatized.
Meanwhile the Albanian reporters were losing their voices on air as they described every bit of the situation, from their arrival down to the escalation with one of them saying “I have never in my entire life seen anything like this.” Blendi Fevziu, one of Albania’s top reporters said that upon arrival his and his colleagues’ red scarves were confiscated by police. They were told no Albanian symbols were allowed into Serbia.
“They treated us like terrorists”
Albanian prime minister’s brother, who was present at the game, was arrested on suspicions of controlling the drone but most likely because he was the only Albanian there. Prime minister Edi Rama has expressed his disappointment “Over our neighbors who’ve globally embarrassed themselves.” Way to go Serbia causing yet another diplomatic rift just in time for Rama’s upcoming visit.
SERB VIOLENCE ON THE FIELD (click photos twice for bigger resolution) :
