Serbia are threatening to withdraw from Euro 2024 following offensive chants from fans at Croatia’s 2-2 draw with Albania on Wednesday.
During the Group B game at the Volksparkstadion in Hamburg, supporters could be heard singing “kill the Serbs”.
Jovan Surbatovic, the general secretary of the Football Association of Serbia, told state-owned broadcaster RTS: “What happened is scandalous and we will ask Uefa for sanctions, even if it means not continuing the competition.”
Bloody conflicts took place between Croatian and Serb forces, and between Serb forces and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, during the Balkan wars of the 1990s amid the break-up of Yugoslavia.
Serb forces carried out a campaign of repression against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999, which ended after a Nato bombing campaign against Serbia.
Hundreds of thousands of Serbs and people from other groups were also killed in camps run by the Ustase, a Croatian fascist organsiation, during the Second World War.
It has also been reported that a Kosovan journalist has had their accreditation revoked for the remainder of the tournament after making an Albanian eagle gesture towards Serbian fans during their opener against England.
After that 1-0 defeat, Uefa also launched an investigation over claims Serbia fans had chanted racial abuse at England’s black players. They have been charged with throwing objects and displaying a provocative “no surrender” message on a banner about Kosovo and received a £12,250 fine.
Albania have already received one fine for a separate display during their first match, a 2-1 defeat to Italy, which showed a map of the country extending beyond their existing borders. Uefa deemed the banner “not fit for a sports event”.
“We are sure that they [fans at Croatia vs Albania] will be punished, because they have already responded to our appeal to remove the so-called journalist from Albania from the championship,” Surbatovic added.
“We will request Uefa to punish the federations of both selections. We don’t want to participate in that, but if Uefa doesn’t punish them, we will think about how to proceed.
“We were punished for isolated cases and our fans behaved much better than the others. One fan was fined for racist abuse and we don’t want it to be attributed to others. We Serbs are gentlemen and we have an open heart, so I appeal to the fans to remain gentlemen.”
Serbia are set to play Slovenia in their second group match on Thursday, before finishing the group stages against Denmark on 25 June.