Who benefits from the BiH national team matches scheduled outside of FIFA's approved window?

By Haris Ljevo

The Football Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina will play two friendly matches in America at the end of January 2018 against the USA and Mexico. The match against the USA will be played on January 28th in Los Angeles, and against Mexico on the 31st in San Antonio.

The scheduling of such matches raises the question of the purpose and interests behind these arrangements.

January is not a FIFA-approved window for friendly matches, so we will certainly play against the USA and Mexico without our best players who play for foreign clubs (Džeko, Pjanić, Kolašinac, Begović...), as they will have obligations with their clubs at that time.

Players from the domestic league, who will be on winter break and completely out of competitive form, will play against the USA and Mexico. They will be forced to undertake a long journey across America.

The national team still does not have a coach; one is expected to be appointed by the end of November, or by the end of this year at the latest. Therefore, it can be said with certainty that the coach will not be familiar with the quality and form of the players they will select.

Fans are rightly asking whether the coach will select the squad himself or if they will receive a pre-made list from those who arranged the matches during this period.

The match against Mexico will be played in San Antonio, the second-largest city in the state of Texas with 1.3 million inhabitants, 63 percent of whom are immigrants from Latin American countries, primarily Mexico. There is a negligible number of people from Bosnia and Herzegovina living in San Antonio.

Tickets for the match between Mexico and BiH were put on sale through online services even before the Football Association of BiH confirmed the match was arranged, which only shows that the match was arranged with a single purpose – for Mexican fans to watch their national team.

Mexico does not see it as a problem that this is not an official FIFA match window, as the majority of the Mexican national team consists of players from their domestic league. Therefore, they will field an almost full-strength squad, missing only a few players who play in Europe.

The national team should play its matches for the fans. However, if we consider that our national team has played only two matches on home soil out of the last 19 friendly games, the last one being over three years ago against Liechtenstein, then we can rightly say that our Association arranges matches for the benefit of management agencies, not for the fans.

Football has long since become a business and a means for striking lucrative deals, with fans playing only a secondary role. At least when it comes to the Football Association of BiH.