Soccer and nationalism: missed opportunities

27.06.2018

Newspaper comment by Rudolf Müllner in derStandard.at on July 25, 2018

In the World Cup match Serbia vs. Switzerland the Swiss players Xherdan Shaqiri and Granit Xhaka were celebrating their goals by showing a hand gesture resembling the double-headed eagle on the Albanian flag. Both goal scorers have ethnic Albanian heritage with roots in Kosovo.

The gestures caused quite a stir in the media and FIFA fined both players because they had broken FIFA's regulations for provocative gestures.

derStandard.at published Rudolf Müllner's comment on this topic.