Football – only a game?

This is a big year for Bosnia – elections, thirty years since Sarajevo and Yugoslavia hosted the winter Olympics, and a century since the assassination of Arch-duke Franz Ferdinand. But it also marks the first time that Bosnia and Herzegovina has qualified for the football world cup. The national team, the dragons (zmajevi), will be heading to Brazil. In the meantime, the trophy paid a visit to Sarajevo, and the team played a friendly game against Egypt last week.

Football, and to be fair, sport of any kind, is not my strong suite, but sporting events are frequently invested with a significance that goes far beyond the athleticism, skills and tactics of the players. The match between the US and Iran at the ’98 world cup is often highlighted as easing tensions between the countries, the captains’ gestures in exchanging gifts at the outset praised as diplomacy on the pitch, but this makes something of a contrast to the words of Ayatollah Khameni’s post-match analysis:

Tonight, again, the strong and arrogant opponent felt the bitter taste of defeat at your hands

In Belgium, football is seen variously as a potential unifying force and an arena in which the country’s divisions are reflected. In Scotland, local rivalries are mixed in with sectarian division. Kosovo fans burned the Serbian flag ahead of their first international football game against Haiti in Mitrovica.

A friend who knows much more about these things than me tells me that it has been associated with hopes of minority integration in France, and with overcoming post-war division in Rwanda. So, what of Bosnia?

Football – mirror to the state

Creating state-level institutions and symbols is not easy here – whether it is a currency, a flag, a state-level judiciary, or a single state-level policing structure. These invariably face political challenges from those who see, and who wish to retain, power at the more local level of government. Until 2005, the country had two armies. Even then, Paddy Ashdown outlines how it took a couple of major scandals in Republika Srpska to give him the leverage to push the changes through (those would be giving refuge to war time General and indicted suspect for war crimes and genocide, Ratko Mladić, and providing military equipment to Iraq in contravention of UN sanctions).

But, in 2002, only two years after Bosnia and Herzegovina formed its first unified border police service, the Bosnian Football Association was formed, bringing together teams from the Federation and Republika Srpska together into one league. The name ‘Nogometni/Fudbalski Savez Bosne I Hercegovine’ reflects the fact that there are variations in the language spoken here.

Before the war, there had been a Bosnian League, and the current association notes that clubs like the local team in Grbavica, Željezničar, Borac of Banja Luka, and Velež of Mostar all went on to win the Yugoslavia wide championship. After the war, the system of football, like most other systems, divided along ethnic and entity lines.

How was unification achieved? In a way, it followed the pattern of the general peace settlement – first Bosniak and Croat teams formed a joint league, followed by agreement on the inclusion of teams from Republika Srpska some time later (in women’s football, this happened last year). Power sharing and the division of appointments followed ethnic lines, with a three member presidency just like the state level government.

When this resulted in Bosnia’s suspension from FIFA for contravening their statute and principles, a dose of international intervention was applied with a FIFA-appointed ‘normalisation committee’, but one made up of domestic football personalities. Maybe this kind of intervention is easier when it is only a game, and when the real centres of state power are not at stake.

Euphoria and common feeling

Football being an internationalised game, only a couple of players in the squad of 29 currently play club-level football in Bosnia. The Bosnian diaspora being what it is, about half have not played at club level in Bosnia. Nonetheless, those with domestic experience have represented clubs across the country. So is this a national institution that can help develop some degree of unity and common feeling in Bosnia?

An article published in the Banja Luka daily, Nezavisne Novine, a paper established after the war with support from US AID to promote non-nationalist media, paints a picture of active, if quieter support for the national squad in Banja Luka, capital of the Republika Srpska.

Further success may support this – euphoria can be infectious. And as a game, football is something that people can project hopes and aspirations onto – the process of articulating hopes for a national team may well translate into a greater identification with the national space. Bosnia have a good chance of getting through the group stages, sustaining the excitement about the dragons a little longer.

A stronger identification with the national level is not inconsistent with other levels or forms of identity and may change how people see the state. Nonetheless, the problems in Bosnia are systematic and need resolution at the political level, and no amount of football will fix that.

And the atmosphere here in Sarajevo when the dragons played Egypt? I’d love to say, but football really is not my strong suite and the screen I was glued to was at Meeting Point cinema, where they were showing the Dallas Buyers Club. I’ll try harder for the first world cup game against Argentina.

Love football, love coffee? Come to Bosnia!

Cups €12.50 at the BH Fan Shop