FIFA Backing for ‘Illegal’ Match Angers Kosovo Football Chief

The Kosovo Football Federation, FFK, has expressed fury over a letter from the world football body FIFA, calling on it to lift a ban on a planned match that it insists is "illegal" in the Serb-run north of Kosovo.

The KFF does not want the top Serbian team Belgrade Red Star playing an unregistered team in northern Kosovo, saying that an unauthorised match must not be played on Kosovo's territory.

Much to its disappointment, however, FIFA has written to the FFK, saying it "encourages" the FFK to lift the ban.

A draw for the Cup of Serbia saw the well-known Belgrade team due to play Trepca, a team based in the northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica. The FFK calls the unregistered team "illegal".

The match was due to go ahead on September 25 but has been put on hold. The FIFA letter hinted that it had been rescheduled for October 5.

"In the interest of football, we would like to encourage the FFK to withdraw the request made to the Kosovo Security Institutions [to stop the game] so that the match can take place on October 5," the letter signed by the FIFA Deputy Secretary general, Mattias Grafstrom, said.

FFK Secretary General Eroll Salihu condemned the request, suggesting that the wider context had not been understood. "It is more a political than a sporting issue, so this letter is absurd," Salihu told Radio Free Europe on Friday.

He also insisted the matter was for UEFA and not FIFA to decide. "We sent an explanatory letter to UEFA and not to FIFA because UEFA is competent [on this matter], he recalled.

"We just informed FIFA, and it seems that an unexperienced official said that they would encourage it [the match]," he said.

He added that, as a full member of FIFA, the FFK was "the sole authority to organise...