Bosnians supporting Bosnia in Euro 2012?

It was all looking so good for Bosnia. One up against France and they were on the verge of winning their group and securing automatic qualification to their first major football tournament. They had come agonisingly close to qualifying for the 2010 World Cup, their campaign coming to an end one cold November night in Zenica as Deco scored for Portugal.

But it wasn't to be. Bosnia gave away a penalty, France equalised and won the group. Bosnia were heading for the play-offs again, to play Portugal again on what is bound to be another cold November evening. Its all a bit deja vu. But this time Serbia haven't qualified. Which means that this time, for the first time, the Bosnian Serbs (about 40% of the Bosnian population) might support Bosnia.

The Bosnians Serbs have by and large supported Serbia since the break up of Yugoslavia, shunning the poorly performing Bosnian national team (in the same vein the Bosnian Croats have tended to support Croatia). With Serbia flying high in world football, there has been no reason for the Bosnian Serbs to identify with their own national team. In fact, with the memory of the recent bloodshed still fresh, many chose to support whoever it was playing against Bosnia.

In November 2009, with World Cup qualification almost within the Bosnians' grasp, there was a palpable sense of change. For the first time the Bosnian Serbs wanted Bosnia to do well. Perhaps November 2011 will witness their whole hearted support and a rare moment of unity in this still divided country.

Preaching to the unconverted

I have a small secret. I'm not a believer. I don't subscribe to the view that 'Sport has the power to change the world'. Or, more accurately, I don't believe that sport can be used for peace, development or reconciliation without, at the very least, a wider understanding of how it does, and how it might not.

Take football. A marvellous game, watched and participated in with enthusiasm the world over. A game that can bring communities together. Or a game that can cement division as fans take to the streets to show their antipathy to the opposition. A game of pure simplicity, yet a game so often dominated and influenced by local politics and clouded by murkiness.

This blog is a chance for me to write about events that happen in the sports world which are examples of how sport can affect peace and reconciliation. Hopefully there will be plenty shining positive examples of how sport can change the world, I so very much want to be a believer. But, for now, I concur with the view of a man tasked with the development of football for peace programmes in Bosnia who asks 'how can an aim as pure and true as peace and reconciliation be achieved by an activity that is so rotten at its heart?'