Kosovo\u2019s national football team wasn\u2019t able to triumph in their match against Spain yesterday, ending the night with a 3-1 score, in Spain\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n
Apart from the performance on the field, the face-off between Spain and Kosovo has seen a large backlash and comments on a political level, as Madrid still hasn\u2019t recognized Kosovo and its independence from Serbia, often calling it the territory of Kosovo instead of an independent Republic.<\/p>\n
The coach of Kosovo\u2019s national team, Bajram Shala said for Euronews Albania that the Spanish Soccer Federation has held a generally positive stance.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite many polemics in the past couple of weeks, our reception in Spain has been quite positive and the Spanish Federation was willing to provide us with all the help we needed that was within their competence. We made it clear since the start that we wouldn\u2019t accept to be treated in any other way other than as equal rivals, at least from the federation and in relation to the regulatory protocols, defined by UEFA and FIFA and that\u2019s how we were treated, \u201csaid Shala.<\/p>\n
However, the Spanish public television decided to take a controversial step by refusing to write Kosovo\u2019s name in upper-case letters like the name of their rivals for the night was. Next to one another, in the score icon, on the top right corner of the screen, Spain is written in upper-case letters, while Kosovo in lower-case.<\/p>\n
According to Shala, this was definitely not a mistake or a coincidence. It was an intentional decision reinstating Spain\u2019s refusal to recognize Kosovo\u2019s independence from Serbia and its establishment as a state, over 10 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a mistake; it was in line with the state\u2019s official stance. The media and institutions in Spain have tried, in every possible way to minimize Kosovo\u2019s statehood in this face-off and their national public TV hung on to this same line, which kept our country\u2019s name written in small lower-case letters, during the entire course of the match,\u201d concluded Shala.<\/p>\n
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Kosovo\u2019s national football team wasn\u2019t able to triumph in their match against Spain yesterday, ending the night with a 3-1 score, in Spain\u2019s favor. Apart from the performance on the field, the face-off between Spain and Kosovo has seen a large backlash and comments on a political level, as Madrid still hasn\u2019t recognized Kosovo and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":9457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[163],"tags":[151],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n