Open Letter to the Handball Federation of BiH: Respect the Regulations, Review the Match

The return leg of the BiH Cup quarter-final, played on 29 March this year, in which Zrinjski beat Bosna 27-21 and thus advanced to the final stage of this competition, still has not received its final epilogue.

Due to, to say the least, biased refereeing in the mentioned duel and violations of the elementary rules of handball, immediately after the final whistle, RK Bosna announced an appeal against the match. They have now sent an open letter to the Handball Federation of BiH.

- Aware of the balance of power on the field and our own quality, we went to Mostar with a clear goal of celebrating victory, although even a loss by a margin of four or five would have taken us to the finals. Aware of the expected home refereeing, we were still convinced that nothing could thwart our plans to advance to the Final Four. However, we encountered an unprecedented refereeing theft that cost us the next stage.

From suspicious and targeted exclusions, non-existent/existent seven-metre throws and passive play, to a disallowed goal for advancement and a lack of knowledge of the rules of handball, or rather, the avoidance of applying them, where we were directly denied the opportunity to score a goal that would have taken us to the finals. Along with the surprisingly disgusting behaviour of the Mostar crowd, where a handful of quasi-fans even threw hard objects at our players and ruined the positive story of fair and commendable cheering in the "Bijeli Brijeg" hall, in Mostar, in the truest sense of the word, an unprecedented disgrace of BiH handball occurred.

Revolted by the events on our courts in general, with this extremely disgusting culmination in Mostar, we paid the appeal fee (500 KM) on time and submitted it to the competition commissioner, convinced that the match would be replayed due to violations of basic handball rules by the refereeing pair. We would gladly publish this match and show the public how we were eliminated from the Cup, however, despite a request sent to the commissioner for the delivery of the match video, we have not received it to this day.

On 3 April, a bulletin of the played quarter-final matches was published, in which Commissioner Alpeza wrote the following: "The Expert Refereeing Commission of the RS BiH is ordered to carry out an expert analysis of the match HMRK ZRINJSKI – RK BOSNA Sarajevo, considering all elements and allegations contained in the written appeal of RK Bosna Sarajevo. The Office of the RS BiH is obliged to ensure all prerequisites for the work of the expert refereeing commission. The finding of the performed expert analysis shall be submitted no later than within eight (8) days, on the basis of which a decision on the registration of the match will be made."

Restoring our hope for at least a bit of regularity in BiH handball and a better tomorrow for this sport, as well as in the work of the Handball Federation of BiH itself, we impatiently awaited the decision of the Expert Refereeing Commission, convinced that the match would be replayed under some normal conditions. However, we soon received another slap in the face. The eight-day deadline passed, and according to our information, the said commission never met, because their meeting and conducting the expert analysis should be paid for by the RS BiH, and since it has blocked accounts due to problems with re-registration, this did not happen, nor did anyone officially comment on this issue.

The Handball Club Bosna duly fulfilled its obligations regarding the appeal, and that was it. We ask ourselves whether it is possible that the Handball Federation is unable to ensure the meeting of the commission that would carry out an expert analysis of this extremely important match, and that it will so easily gloss over this issue, bypass the rules and absolutely ignore the stated events. Has Bosnian-Herzegovinian handball really hit rock bottom to such an extent that our appeal will not even see the light of day, despite clear regulations, the order of the commissioner himself, and, we repeat, our duly fulfilled obligations?

We all know well what the situation is in our federation and that the problem is not just one match and that this is just one in a series of failures of the RS BiH, but we believe that this one is too big. We experienced an incredible theft by the refereeing pair and
we will not allow it to be covered up. We ask for nothing but respect for the regulations, where our appeal must be the subject of an expert analysis by the Expert Refereeing Commission, as provided for, despite the efforts of some other interest groups to prevent this from happening, because the outcome of this situation could disrupt all sorts of plans.

The most trophy-winning handball collective in BiH will not compete in such circumstances, and we publicly demand that someone finally react to the disgrace we have experienced, because this cannot go on any longer - the letter states.