Furious Boss Hits Back at Celtic Star in International Tug of War

JOZO SIMUNOVIC has angered his Bosnian International coach by rejecting his call up to the national side.

Jozo who switched allegiance from Croatia to Bosnia last year after playing for Croatia at youth level.

The defender’s parents are for Bosnia, so he decided to switch his allegiance. Since then Jozo has not actually played for Bosnia and his decision to reject a call up has people talking he wants to go back to his adopted country Croatia to play in the World Cup.

Bosnia manager Robert Prosineck is outraged by the player’s unwillingness to play for his national side.

“When we start begging someone to play for the national team, I find that impossible. I won’t do that.

“For me, the greatest honour in football is being invited to play for your country.

“Jozo Simunovic called me last week and said he would not play for Bosnia. My response to him was not to tell me his reasons…tell the public of Bosnia why you don’t want to play for them.

Bosnia believes the player is not within his right to head back to Croatia after declaring for Bosnia.

A Bosnian FA spokesman tried to clarify the issue:

“FIFA have informed us about their Change of Association Rule 8.1.

“It states that If a player has more than one nationality, or if a player seeks a new nationality, or if a player fulfills the conditions for playing for more national teams due to his nationality, he may, only once, request to change the association.

“Therefore, he is now only eligible to play for Bosnia because FIFA’s Status Committee granted him permission last year to play for us.”

Does Croatia have an ace up their sleeve and can it be properly counted as a player switching allegiance if he’s on been declared at youth level beforehand?

We await the next step in this saga.