Albania refuse to kick off match vs France after wrong National Anthem is played. The farcical scene happened at the Stade de France on Saturday.
It is a matter of pride for people to hear their national anthem on an international stage. It instils them with hope and gratification especially before a tough national assignment. You can imagine the feelings then when Albania heard Andorra’s national anthem play instead of theirs ahead of their match with France.
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This created much confusion for Albania and embarrassment for the officials in charge of the national anthems. Understandably, the Albanians refused to start the game until their actual anthem was played.
Watch Albania refuse to kick off match vs France after wrong National Anthem is played
https://twitter.com/ESPNFC/status/1170444224069849090
https://twitter.com/FootballFanCast/status/1170610358307958784
This prompted an apology from the stadium announcer who would express his regret to; believe it or not, Armenia!
They somehow ended up making the situation much worse by mistaking the visiting team for not one but two different countries!
Not the first time!
It is hard to imagine an organisation as large and influential as UEFA making such a callous mistake. However, this is not the first time such scenes have taken place. Just last year, South Korea witnessed a similar embarrassment when the North Korean anthem played before their match against Jordan.
Uruguay also stood for Chile’s anthem instead of their own back in the 2016 Copa America. The most embarrassing in all sports however has to be the one that happened with Kazakhstan back in 2012.
The Kazakhstani shooting team won a gold medal in Kuwait. However, when they stood at the podium for their national anthem, the parody version from Borat played on the speakers instead.
Imagine winning a gold for your country only to be mocked at on the podium. However, just because UEFA did not dish something as insulting doesn’t excuse their inefficiency. Hopefully something similar doesn’t occur anytime again in the future.
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