FIFA will investigate Swiss players for goal celebration

Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri offered unusual goal celebrations for Switzerland against Serbia. FIFA is investigating possible political motives.

Two Swiss players are under investigation by FIFA after the Serbian FA launched a formal complaint about their goal celebrations in Switzerland’s 2-1 win over Serbia at the World Cup. Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri both flashed Albanian eagle gestures after scoring against the Serbs in Kaliningrad on June 22. While FIFA should have no reason to discipline the Swiss players, there is theoretically a provision against “provoking the general public” which could result in suspensions up to two games.

Xhaka, the Swiss-born son of two Kosovar Albanian refugees from Yugoslavia who relocated to Basel before his birth, made the Albanian Eagle gesture after scoring against Serbia to tie the match in the 52nd minute. So too did Shaqiri, a Kosovo-born Albanian who was displaced as an infant by war and the dissolution of Yugoslavia and whose family settled in Switzerland, when he scored the winner in the 90th minute.

The gesture was especially controversial given the opponent.

Yugoslavia’s history as a nation-state was marked by power struggles between the different Slavic ethnic groups in the region, including Albanians and Serbians. When Yugoslavia dissolved after 1991, the region of Kosovo in which many ethnic Albanians reside became one of the key regions of conflict. The country of Albania only officially separated from Serbia and Montenegro in 2008 and tension remains.

Both players spoke after the match to the Guardian about their gestures. Shaqiri noted, “It was a fantastic goal, an important goal for my team and I am very proud I was able to score it for them. I can’t discuss the gesture I’m afraid. We are footballers, not politicians… Emotions sometimes take over footballers and there was a lot of emotion out there.”

Xhaka added, “Frankly, my opponents did not interest me at all. It was for my people, who always supported me. For those who did not neglect me, in my homeland, where my parents’ roots are. These were purely emotions.”

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Xhaka and Shaqiri are two of three starters of Albanian ethnicity with ties to Kosovo on the Swiss national team. Midfielder Valon Behrami was also born in Kosovo and migrated as a five-year-old to Switzerland, where his parents sought economic opportunities.