In a move that will surprise many and disappoint some, European football’s governing body UEFA is set to confirm that Albania and Serbia will be the co-hosts of the European U21 Championship in 2027.
Their joint bid has been UEFA’s only option since last September when Belgium and Turkey said they were no longer interested in hosting the biennial tournament.
But the shock is not that these two Balkan rivals have prevailed in this football beauty parade, it is that they decided to team up in the first place.
Relations between Albania and Serbia have been fraught since the 19th century but they have been particularly raw since the late 1990s when they fought for control of Kosovo, a disputed republic sandwiched between them that Serbia believes is the cradle of its civilisation but is now more than 90 per cent Albanian.
Kosovo, strongly supported by Albania, declared its independence from Serbia in 2008 and its sovereign status has been recognised by more than 100 countries globally.
Serbia is not one of them and the subject of Kosovo has come to dominate all meetings between Albania and Serbia, including football matches, although they have not played each other since 2014, when a Euro 2016 qualifier in Belgrade descended into chaos when Albanians outside the ground used a drone to fly a Greater Albania flag over the pitch.
The flag was eventually grabbed by one of Serbia’s players, sparking a fight between the two teams that ended up with the Albanians being chased off the pitch by fans. UEFA initially gave Serbia a 3-0 walkover win but that verdict was later reversed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which decided the Serbs were more at fault for the abandonment of the game.
The two sides managed to avoid each other for a decade until they both qualified for Euro 2024 in Germany last summer, where, despite not playing each other, their rivalry was one of the stories of the tournament.
Both federations were repeatedly fined by UEFA for their fans’ behaviour in Germany, most notably for displaying “provocative” banners and flags during their games, but the Albanians were hit particularly hard.
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A reporter from Kosovo was sent home for goading Serbian fans during one match before Albania forward Mirlind Daku was banned for two games for grabbing a microphone after his team’s draw with Croatia and shouting nationalist chants to the crowd.
That game was a low point for recent relations between Serbia and its neighbours, as fans from Albania and Croatia were alleged to have shouted anti-Serb chants.
The Albanian federation was fined almost £150,000 for their fans and players’ behaviour in Germany but Serbia were hit with even stiffer sanctions when their fans set fire to Albanian flags during Nations League games in November against Switzerland and Denmark. As a result of those actions, there will be no Serbian fans at their next two away games and they will have to play in front of partially closed stands for their next two home games.
Given this litany of acrimony, it is hardly surprising that news of the joint bid was greeted with protests in Albania and Kosovo last year.
However, the two federations, with the backing of their governments and UEFA, are determined to improve relations between the countries, which is timely as they have just been drawn in the same qualifying group for the 2026 World Cup.
In terms of the plan for 2027, the two nations will each host two of the four-team groups and split the quarter-finals and semi-finals evenly. The National Arena in Albania’s capital Tirana will host the final, with Stadium Karadjordje in the Serbian city of Novi Sad staging the tournament’s opening game.
It will be the biggest football tournament either nation has hosted and the first major sporting event they have shared.
(Top photo: Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images)
