Swiss ban Xhaka and Shaqiri from showing "Albanian eagle," they don't want repeat of that game against Serbia

Photo: Tanjug/AP

Over the next few days, the Swiss football team will play its last two matches in the Nations League, but they are also already thinking about the World Cup in Qatar as well!

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The Swiss will play against Serbia again at the World Cup, like they did in Russia, and many still, even though four years have passed, talk about the disgraceful celebration of Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri, who tried to provoke our team by gesturing to show "the Albanian double-headed eagle."

That caused a big storm in Switzerland, and the director of the national team, Pierluigi Tami, now tells the local media that he would do everything to prevent it from happening again. The first step is a ban.

"The World Cup does not consist only of the match against Serbia, even if we know how special this match is, considering what happened in 2018. We don't want to make the same mistakes, we are here to play football and nothing else. We don't want to send any political or religious messages," Tami told Klartext and added:

"We want to represent our values. One of them is: respect. We show respect for other opinions. For me, it would be a mistake to provoke someone with a gesture, regardless of the game. There should be no words, gestures or behavior in general that provokes other reactions. When we celebrate, we show our joy, that's important. But we don't have to provoke."

Valon Behrami, a former Swiss national team player who played against Serbia in 2018, recently spoke about this as well.

"I still hate that topic to this day. It's football, not politics. That gesture has no place on the football pitch. It's nonsense, we are not playing war. I was criticized in Kosovo at the time for not participating in showing that gesture. Serbian players are my friends, they were born after the war. That's why at this World Cup you should only play football and ignore everything else."

(Telegraf.rs)