Spanish government gives green light for Kosovo match played in Spain

The government of Spain has granted permission for the development of the qualifying match for the 2022 World between the Spanish and Kosovo National in Spain, dismissing rumours that the Iberian Peninsula state will seek to meet with Kosovo on a neutral ground.

Spain's Football Federation has already assigned the “Estadio de la Cartuja” to Seville, as the place where it will welcome Kosovo on 31 March for the qualifying match for the World Cup and according to the newspaper “Sport”, is just awaiting authorisation by the government in Madrid, which it says will be made public soon, Express newspaper reports.

The government has given the green light for the development of the match in Spain and has found no neutral ground. This decision, however, does not imply that Spain recognises Kosovo independence”, the Spanish daily writes.

Kosovo is part of Group B along with Spain, Sweden, Greece and Georgia, four national, three of which have recognised its independence.

Summers were caught playing in Group A, in fact, but since Serbia was in that group, then they moved to Group B, according to FIFA's lot rules. On political issues, Kosovo could not be in a group with Serbia, Russia and Bosnia.

Spain recognises Kosovo mainly because of Catalonia, its northeastern region, which had unanimously voted in a referendum in 2017 to be independent of Spain.

In the past, Spain had not recognised Kosovo's symbols of the state in its sports events.

Kosovo was forced to participate in the Mediterranean Games in Tarragona and the World Karate Championship in Madrid in 2018 without state symbols because of the Spanish government's stance.

But only a year later, Spain suffered the consequences of not accepting Kosovo's state symbols.

In 2019, UEFA removed the organisation of the qualifying matches for the U-17 European Championships from Spain because he had refused to recognise Kosovo's state symbols.

Spain was to host Group 5, which included itself, Kosovo, Greece and Ukraine. UEFA decided that the matches would take place in Switzerland.

Spain's Football Federation was forced to pay all the cost of two matches with Kosovo in Nyon.