Explaining Bosnian Football's Latest Crisis

Sarajevo's walk-off in the Cup brings the integrity of everything into focus

Bosnian Cup Quarter Finals rarely draw any sort of attention from outside the country. Still played over a two legged format now abandoned by virtually every other nation, they are rarely the centre of attention, never mind controversy.

However, this week’s second leg game between FK Sarajevo and Borac Banja Luka exploded into being perhaps the event that might actually change something. If nothing else, it certainly appears to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back when it came to certain alleged subversive excesses within the game.

The tipping point would come in second half injury time as the Sarajevo leadership’s patience with refereeing spilled over into the side being walked off the field and the game needing to be abandoned. In my many years of watching football in the region as a whole, walkoffs over refereeing have been very occasional (I can’t remember one this side of Dinamo Vranje’s Serbian Superliga spell) and this is the first time in a long time that that walkoff has been anything other than a temporary protest that fizzled out and saw the game eventually resumed after a few minutes of delay. Even in a region that most pigeonholes as febrile at the best of times, Sarajevo’s reaction was extraordinary.

As tempting as it may be to take it purely in isolation, such temptation must be resisted. One look at the opposition should tell you that.

It is difficult to avoid sounding like a wild conspiracy theorist when it comes to the season of runaway league leaders Borac Banja Luka. It would be even more difficult to ignore, however, that Vico Zeljkovic, head of the Bosnian FA, rose to that position after being head of that club and being the nephew of the Republika Srpska leader, Milorad Dodik. A few of the comments on my own social media sum things up:

“Only one ridiculous mistake of many for the same club”

“0% football, 100% politics”

Just what on earth is going on?

Sarajevo-Borac

Having stated that taking this one game in isolation is something to be resisted, it’s time to take a look at that game in isolation. From my own perspective, knowing the personalities at the helm of the club, the likes of Ibricic and Rozman blowing up as they did is extremely out of character. What about this 90 minutes of Mateo Musa in the middle frustrated Sarajevo so much? 

While the highlights package from Arenasport obviously by no means shows every incident, it shows enough. The very first clip from it is a long range shot from Sarajevo that is quite clearly and loudly turned around the post by Borac’s keeper and is deemed a goal kick. Things do not get better from here.

On their next attack, while Borac start to clear, Sarajevo turn the ball over on the edge of the box. The tackle to do so is as clean as they come yet is called a foul. At this point, Sarajevo coaching staff get booked for protesting. Soon after, Borac score but there was a clear foul due to a late tackle in the build up to the goal that was not called - this wasn’t a difficult decision for the referee nor was it a 50-50 call. 

Early in the second half, Sarajevo are denied a penalty after a player is pushed over in the box. While not a stonewall penalty, it is certainly the sort of thing that you see given more often than not due to the clumsiness of the defender’s action. Sarajevo players are booked for protesting. Sarajevo would be given a penalty shortly after (because this one was a stonewaller!) but Borac restore their lead just after in uncontentious fashion.

The game is then ended as a contest as Sarajevo’s Renan Oliveira is sent off. The reason given is for punching an opponent and, from the angles given, this seems reasonably justified albeit Oliveira is getting a Chiellini style shirt pull before he reacts. Calling what he did a punch is rather excessive - it was a flailing arm - but no referee is going to react to an arm swinging in the manner it did with anything other than a red card. While the highlights don’t show any replays, I’ve gone back to watch the broadcast version and the replays shown live neither add much nor leave much in the way of ambiguity that the referee’s call was probably correct. A member of Sarajevo’s coaching staff was also sent to the stands at this point.

The next incident would come in the 88th minute as a foul was given against Sarajevo after one of their players was bodychecked and taken out by a Borac defender. Players failed to react to the whistle and Vinko Soldo was booked (and arguably should have been sent off) for his reaction in diving onto the floor to scream in a Borac player’s face. 

The final incident would be the most not a foul I’ve ever seen given as a foul that genuinely has to be seen to be believed. Sarajevo players laugh in the referee’s face, surround him with ample pushing and shoving and then are pulled off the field by their staff and the club president coming onto the pitch.

From those watching the game live, I’m advised there were far more in the way of individual weird decisions on a more minor level. Given Wyscout doesn’t currently have a fully tagged version of the game on, going through every single call isn’t practicable for me so I will take their assurances that the game was strangely refereed well beyond what a 7 minute highlights package can show.

The judgement must, therefore, be on where the line is that one draws between competence and conspiracy. Even if the latter was the case, the undeniable truth is that the game was handled terribly by the referee. Sarajevo players clearly lose their heads with multiple instances of players crowding the ref and things threatening to escalate further. There are multiple clearly incorrect decisions. There are instances where you clearly see players have to hold themselves back from punting the ball at the referee in incredulity. Sarajevo’s frustrations were understandable and they clearly spilled over into their wider conduct - some may call that improper but we wouldn’t be having a wider discussion about the integrity of Bosnian football without that boiling point having been reached on their part. That Sarajevo’s patience was pushed to and beyond its limit as easy to understand as it is hard to deny.

The wider season

For one to draw that line swerving towards conspiracy, then one has to consider the season at large and if Borac have benefitted from more than their fair share of good fortune. I think few would doubt that Borac’s game before this - a top of the table clash vs Zrinjski - was one that did not owe much in the way of fortune and does establish Borac as, whatever you think of certain refereeing decisions, a leading side.

That said, their first leg cup game vs Sarajevo certainly does merit further investigation. In that, Sarajevo were denied a penalty in spite of a clear handball in the box from a corner.

Going back earlier in the season to their game vs Velez at the start of October and one can see a clear Thierry Henry vs Ireland moment in Borac’s second goal. Or against Sloga Meridian on the 5th matchday - Borac given a penalty for a handball outside of the box (eventually resulting in a goal) with a later goal coming in spite of a player being a good two yards offside in the build-up.

Without poring over every single goal they’ve scored this season, there’s enough there to wonder seriously about the competence of any assistant referees about enforcing the offside rule consistently. That such refereeing incompetence has occurred clearly throws petrol onto the fire of anyone who feels that conspiracy is afoot, whatever the truth of things.

Beyond that, one can point to the suitability of Mateo Musa as referee for this game in general, having made a major error that benefitted Borac in a league game between them and Sarajevo earlier this season. Musa’s competence may be in question (this is hardly his first controversy) but one should equally question the competence of the people making the appointment to put him in this particular firing line.

The wider malaise in Bosnian football, most publicly shown by the dissatisfaction with the National team but more structurally shown by things such as the Josimar investigation into contract tendering for replacement pitches, ultimately stems back to the head of the FA, former Borac executive and poster-boy of Republika Srpska’s nepobaby community, Vico Zeljkovic. Zeljkovic is not only scarcely qualified to hold the role he does but, like his uncle in the political world, seems hellbent upon using his post to undermine Bosnian institutions for the benefit of the greater aim of Republika Srpska nationalism. Certainly, few could look at his actions and feel he’s the best caretaker of Bosnian football’s interests.

That we are having this discussion is a shame given that it obscures the quality of what is a very decent vintage of a Borac side. That they are clear at the top cannot solely be attributed to any alleged machinations of others. But it does not forgive or permit any machinations which may be going on and it should be remembered that UEFA and FIFA ultimately have a responsibility for this. It is they who refused to permit the tripartite FA system to carry on, forcing Bosnia into a rotating system that has allowed one person to wield ultimate footballing power and that has, on only it’s second holder of said power, landed on a person in Zeljkovic who is clearly not fit and proper.

The aftermath

While we await to see the exact size and nature of the book the FA will inevitably throw at Sarajevo, the club can’t be accused of taking these perceived outrages lying down. Sarajevo accused the game of being fixed by the refereeing and that the result was set “outside the field”. They directly accused the FA of corruption stating they have a league “table tailored according to the wishes of individuals in the highest level of football competition”. They requested anyone else in the nation, figures past and present, to join them in revealing what’s going on and that to “keep silent further means we are all gravediggers” of football in the nation.

In publishing the statement including those quotes, they also informed UEFA, FIFA and local legal authorities of these allegations. Sarajevo’s ultras, the Horde Zla described Zeljkovic as an “open enemy” attacking the club.

So where does football in Bosnia go from here?

We are at the juncture where the pressure must now come from outside. While this piece was not conceived with the intent to land down on judgement of one side or another, the questions that are laid by it have the same answer. If you think conspiracy is at play, then UEFA need to get involved to protect the integrity of the game. If you feel competency is the driving issue, then the abysmal standard of refereeing in the nation is such that it requires external assistance from the perspective of training staff or to do what Croatia are doing with derbies and borrowing some of UEFA’s top refs to run a few games.

What is undoubtedly true is that, allowed to run on without external input, the game in Bosnia will wither. Why would any fan go to watch a game where they know decisions from refereeing are likely to be wrong? Why would any fan go to watch a game where they feel unsure that what they see is played honestly? Why would any fan turn out for a national team run by an organisation running the national game so poorly?

But most damagingly, why would any parent want their child to kick a ball around if they have to get involved in all that?

That is why we’re at the point where UEFA have to do something.

Because we’re at the point where the actions of today already threaten to spoil the football of tomorrow.