But what stung Granit Xhaka at the final whistle on Friday night? The captain of the Swiss team finds himself at the center of a controversy when preparing for a round of 16 World Cup.
Granit Xhaka wore his team-mate Adon Jashari’s shirt backwards after the Swiss team secured their qualification with a 3-2 victory against Serbia. “I wanted to pay tribute to a young player who is already the captain of FC Lucerne at the age of 20 and whose career promises to be magnificent, explained the Arsenal player. There was nothing political in this gesture.”
However, another interpretation can be made of this gesture. Jashari is also a famous name in Kosovo: Adem Jashari is one of the main founders and leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army. This man is considered both a national hero by the Albanians and a war criminal by the Serbs who shot him on March 7, 1998 – along with about fifty members of his family – during a bloody operation .
“No political connotation”
According to the Swiss Football Association (ASF), no proceedings were opened on Saturday against Granit Xhaka. “Granit assures that his message had no political connotation”, says the communication unit of the ASF. Even if the pill is extremely big, the ASF hopes that FIFA will swallow it so that this affair deflates like a balloon.
Four years after the first round in Kaliningrad, the Doha meeting was not spared provocations, notably from Serbian strikers Aleksandar Mitrovic and Dusan Lahovic. Granit Xhaka had managed to keep his nerves under control before being caught up in a real fight at the end of the game. Warned by the referee in the 95th minute for his first yellow card of the tournament, he should be there on Tuesday for the round of 16 against Portugal. Unless FIFA gets involved.
ats/jfk
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