{"id":145317,"date":"2018-06-23T10:58:06","date_gmt":"2018-06-23T10:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/double-eagle-celebration-provokes-serbs\/"},"modified":"2018-06-23T10:58:06","modified_gmt":"2018-06-23T10:58:06","slug":"double-eagle-celebration-provokes-serbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/double-eagle-celebration-provokes-serbs\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Double eagle&#8217; celebration provokes Serbs"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Xhaka and Shaqiri&#039;s double eagle gesture\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/621D\/production\/_102171152_mediaitem102171151.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  EPA<figcaption>Image caption                                      Xhaka and Shaqiri both used the Albanian nationalist gesture                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">Serbia has hit out at a &quot;provocative&quot; double eagle celebration by two ethnic Albanian goalscorers in the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri scored for Switzerland who beat Serbia 2-1.<\/p>\n<p>Their gesture is an nationalist symbol representing the double headed eagle on Albania&#039;s national flag. Critics say it could inflame tensions among Serbian nationalists and ethnic Albanians.<\/p>\n<p>Albania&#039;s president applauded the pair but a pro-government Serbian newspaper said they had &quot;humiliated&quot; Switzerland.<\/p>\n<p>The celebration has brought political tensions in the Balkans on to the World Cup stage.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Shaqiri scores 90th-minute winner for Swiss<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>BBC Monitoring reports that in Serbia, pro-government newspaper Informer used a derogatory term for Albanians, saying &quot;the Albanian clan within &#039;clockmakers&#039; team was sending poisoned arrows weeks before, so the match couldn&#039;t pass without a provocation&quot;. <\/p>\n<p>Some Swiss papers also called the gesture a provocation betraying a lack of political sensitivity.<\/p>\n<p>Both players had earlier been booed by Serbian fans during the match.<\/p>\n<figure>                              Image Copyright @BoalsGoals               @BoalsGoals                      <noindex><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/contact-us\/editorial\" rel=\"noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Report<\/a><\/noindex>       <\/figure>\n<figure>                   <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Twitter post by @BoalsGoals: Shaqiri and Xhaka both celebrating the winner with the Albanian eagle in front of the Serbian fans. \" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/socialembed\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/BoalsGoals\/status\/1010251349731225600~\/news\/world-europe-44586587\"\/>Image Copyright @BoalsGoals                   @BoalsGoals                              <noindex><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/contact-us\/editorial\" rel=\"noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Report<\/a><\/noindex>           <\/figure>\n<p>Shaqiri later sought to downplay his celebration, saying: &quot;It&#039;s just emotion. I&#039;m very happy to score this goal. It&#039;s not more. I think we don&#039;t have to speak about this now.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Xhaka and Shaqiri&#039;s families are from Kosovo, where a Serbian crackdown on the Albanian population only ended with Nato military intervention in 1999.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Kosovo turns 10 - but what does it still need to do?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Xhaka&#039;s father spent three-and-a-half years as a political prisoner in Yugoslavia for his support for Kosovan independence. Shaqiri was born in Kosovo and his family fled to Switzerland as refugees.<\/p>\n<p>Kosovo&#039;s ethnic Albanian majority declared independence in 2008 but Serbia, its ally Russia and most ethnic Serbs inside Kosovo do not recognise it.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  AFP\/Getty<figcaption>Image caption                                      Ethnic Albanians celebrate Shaqiri&#039;s winner in the Kosovan capital Pristina                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>There had already been some tension between the Serbian and ethnic Albanian Swiss players before the game.<\/p>\n<p>Shaqiri wears boots displaying the Swiss flag on one heel and the Kosovan flag on the other - but Serbian striker Aleksandar Mitrovic asked: &quot;If he loves Kosovo so much and decides to flaunt the flag, why did he refuse a chance to play for their team?&quot;<\/p>\n<p>The Switzerland attacker was then roundly booed by Serbs when his name was announced.<\/p>\n<figure>                              Image Copyright @goal               @goal                      <noindex><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/contact-us\/editorial\" rel=\"noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Report<\/a><\/noindex>       <\/figure>\n<figure>                   <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Twitter post by @goal: BOOOOOOOOOO! \ud83d\ude20\ud83d\udc4eThe Serbian fans are NOT keen on Xherdan Shaqiri!#SRB #SUI \" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/socialembed\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/goal\/status\/1010221412357844992~\/news\/world-europe-44586587\"\/>Image Copyright @goal                   @goal                              <noindex><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/contact-us\/editorial\" rel=\"noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Report<\/a><\/noindex>           <\/figure>\n<p>Afterwards the Swiss manager Vladimir Petkovic - born in Bosnia - said: &quot;You should never mix football and politics.&quot; Serbian manager Mladen Krstajic - also from Bosnia - refused to comment.<\/p>\n<p>Most Serbian media said the goal celebration was a provocation, but not all took a tone of outrage.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Popular news portal B92 said the match had been made &quot;politically tense&quot;<\/li>\n<li>Widely read Blic said of Shaqiri: &quot;He first made us mourn and then explained after the match in Serbian language why he provoked&quot;<\/li>\n<li>Srbin.info said: &quot;Brutal provocation: Xhaka displays the Albanian eagle after scoring and infuriates all Serbs&quot; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However Vecernje Novosti, Politika and state broadcaster RTS focused instead on a complaint by the Serbian football association over the referee&#039;s failure to award a penalty when Mitrovic was apparently wrestled to the ground by two Swiss players.<\/p>\n<p>The Serbian football association is also complaining about Shaqiri&#039;s boots, the goal celebrations and Albanian flags in the stands, they reported.<\/p>\n<p>It is not the first time that football has provided a flashpoint for the long and bitter rivalry between Serbia and Albania.<\/p>\n<p>In 2014 a match between the Balkan nations was abandoned after a drone carrying an Albanian flag sparked a brawl. Ordinary Albanian fans had been banned from attending the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright EPAImage caption Xhaka and Shaqiri both used the Albanian nationalist gesture Serbia has hit out at a &quot;provocative&quot; double eagle celebration by two ethnic Albanian goalscorers in the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":145318,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}