How Shkëndija won the war for Tetovo
Football, as the world’s most popular sport, has one of the strongest abilities to unify. Whether you are rich or poor, young or old, football brings together people from all walks of life just so that thousands can watch two teams of eleven kick a ball around on a patch of grass. Many of those teams happen to be from a small community, whether it be a street where friends grew up together, or an entire district where many share an identity amongst themselves.
This of course is no different within the town of Tetovo, a town with a population of almost 60,000 inhabitants. Tetovo however, is very unique by many metrics within Macedonia. With the town being based in the Polog region, Tetovo’s biggest ethnic group is actually Albanians, who make up an estimated 60–65% of the population. That leaves 20–25% being Macedonians and the remainder are smaller ethnic groups like Roma, Turks, Bosniaks and so on.
With so much ethnic diversity within such a small space, many tight knit communities have formed from within and of course, many of them have a football club that represents them.
Meet the clubs
Tetovo and its surrounding area has many football clubs that call the town home, but only three teams could ever claim to be its king. The best way to visualize all these teams would be through a line similar to the ones used to describe what way a political party leans, although in this case on one end it’s being mostly supported by Albanians, with the other end being mostly supported by Macedonians.
FK Ljuboten
Within the middle of the two groups, you will find the club that everyone can agree to appreciate. That club, of course, being FK Ljuboten.
The Blues are the oldest concurrent club in all of Macedonia, having been formed in 1919 as FK Shar. Back in the days of Yugoslavia, Ljuboten would focus on developing its own youth players since the club would only ever get funding from local businesses or the local government.
FK Teteks
From a team that leaned towards the Macedonian side to one comfortably within it, it’s FK Teteks.
The club was founded in 1953 as FK Tekstilec by the textile combine Teteks, whose name they would rebrand to later on. Unlike the more locally oriented Ljuboten, Teteks sought to become one of the biggest clubs within Macedonia by bringing in talent from elsewhere. This saw the Tailors becoming only a handful of clubs in Macedonia to ever reach the First Federal League of Yugoslavia, alongside Vardar, Rabotnichki and Pelister.
KF Shkëndija
And now finally onto the club on the opposite end of Teteks, it’s the Albanian supported KF Shkëndija.
The Kuq e Zi were originally founded in 1979 but were forced to shut down after the Yugoslav government saw their existence as a source of Albanian nationalism. Eventually the club would be refounded in 1992 with the independence of Macedonia and the formation of the Macedonian football pyramid.
The floodgates open for war
When the new Macedonian leagues were established, Teteks found itself as one of the founding members of the 1MFL, whilst Ljuboten were in the division below them and Shkëndija was all the way down in the municipal leagues. However by the end of the first season, Ljuboten would get promoted to the top flight replacing the relegated Teteks. The Blues would not last long at the top as they would begin their fall down the leagues, eventually finding themselves in the 3MFL by the end of 1997. Shkëndija meanwhile saw itself quickly climb up the leagues up into the 2MFL and even reach the 1MFL for a single season in the 1996/97 season.
By this point the main rivalry in Tetovo was still between the two older clubs in Ljuboten and Teteks. However in 2001, an insurgency led by Albanians separatists would cause chaos across the northwestern parts of Macedonia. The largest pockets of fighting would end up occurring around Tetovo, Arachinovo and Lipkovo, from which many were displaced. The conflict would end by the end of the year, but the scars of the conflict would be permanent.
Among such scars would be a newly formed resentment between both Macedonians and Albanians that had become very apparent in the days after. This translated into football as matches between Shkëndija and Teteks would become hostile events between the two sides. As Ljuboten dropped further and further down the tables in Macedonia, it became apparent that the war for Tetovo would be between Shkëndija and Teteks.
After opting to not participate in the 2001/02 season due to the conflict, Shkëndija was allowed to start again in the 2MFL alongside Teteks. The clubs would finish in 3rd and 4th respectively, as the two only just missed out on promotion. By the following season, the Kuq e Zi had sealed their spot back in the top flight, whilst the Tailors were left to scratch their heads once more in the 2MFL.
After four seasons in the top flight, Shkëndija would once again have to play alongside Teteks in the second division, however this time the Macedonians would see themselves promoted up to the top flight.
Golden age of football in Tetovo
If there was a time to be a football fan from Tetovo, the period from 2009 all the way up until 2013 was some of the best years for the town’s football clubs. This mainly comes down to the fact that not only were both Teteks and Shkëndija amongst the best teams in the country, but also because most games between the two felt like they were equally matched.
Teteks would be the first to start off the golden age after winning the Macedonian Cup against Rabotnichki. Whilst many news sites in Macedonia called the final “a travesty” amidst speculation that the final and Teteks’ path to it was fixed, Tetovo would still celebrate its first ever chance to compete in European competitions.
Not to be outdone, the same season that Teteks won the cup saw Shkëndija win the 2MFL title, and the next season go all the way and win the 1MFL. This not only made them the first club from Tetovo to win the top flight league, but also the first and so far only club in Macedonian history to win the 2MFL and 1MFL back to back.
Shkëndija would then settle in as a top half team whilst Teteks would remain around the bottom half. However both sides would leave the golden age with one last hurrah. The 2012/13 season’s edition of the Macedonian Cup would treat us to a historic Tetovo derby between both Teteks and Shkëndija. The match however would be a mess.
The first attempt at playing the match saw both sets of supporters chanting songs with nationalistic undertones, which led to the game being interrupted and rescheduled to another day with no fans present at the stadium. The second attempt would go much smoother, as goals from Muzafer Ejupi for Shkëndija and Darko Micevski for Teteks would see the game go into penalties. In the end Teteks would prevail and win their second cup title in four years.
However by this point, both clubs were beginning to struggle. Both Teteks and Shkëndija would have financial issues, with the Tailors getting relegated the same season they won their second cup title. Both were crying out for help, but fortunately for one of them, help came.
In comes Ecolog
Shkëndija’s fans began a campaign all the way back at the start of the 2012/13 season begging the locally based business Ecolog to invest more into the club to help it sustain itself. It even got to the point where players like Xherdan Shaqiri were chiming in their support for the cause. By the end of the season news came out that through Lazim Destani, Ecolog had purchased the club from its previous owners.
The club immediately went into spending its new stacks of cash on resigning former players like Fehran Hasani, or other promising Albanian players across the world. Despite the spending, the Kuq e Zi would have to wait two more seasons until they can finally call themselves champions once again. This then kick-started consecutive playoff appearances within European competitions, with Shkëndija just missing out on the group stages of European football with losses to Gent, AC Milan and Rosenborg.
Their local rivals meanwhile would not enjoy the same fate, as Teteks would more or less stabilize in the 2MFL. However as the competition split into two groups and the clubs financial situation worsened, their standing in the league became more precarious as time went on. Eventually, in the 2018/19 season, Teteks would fall down into the 3MFL for the first time in its history.
What would make it even worse for the Tailors is that they wouldn’t even be able to clinch the 3MFL West in the first attempt, meaning that the club would have to struggle with a mounting debt in what is an amateur division. The club did find a lifeline in Labunishta however, as the clubs agreed to a merger that would see Teteks come back into the 2MFL. However this last resort also meant a capitulation by Teteks that they had fallen far behind their own expectations, and thus had conceded defeat in the war for Tetovo.
Shkëndija won, where to from here?
By the time the 2020/21 season ended, Shkëndija had just won its fourth 1MFL title, whilst Teteks languished in seventh in the 2MFL. Both teams had experienced contrasting fortunes in less than a decade but now both clubs are on the down.
Shkëndija have not won another league title since that season, nor have they challenged for another cup title since winning it for a second time in 2018. Much of this failure comes down to poor spending, poor managerial choices or misplaced confidence from the Kuq e Zi. This doesn’t mean that the club is unable to finance itself as Ecolog is still generously financing the club, but it is becoming concerning that Shkëndija is now unable to compete with the likes of Shkupi or Struga, now that even clubs like Brera, Vardar and Tikvesh are progressing forward.
Teteks meanwhile had a small jump up to fifth the following season, however after an ownership change in the summer, many fans began to protest. It had come to light that the new manager was meant to be Bojan Zahariev, someone who was not looked at positively after going into other clubs promising a sponsor that never came. Zahariev would never manage the club as a result of the protests and the managerial situation became a mess up until the following season when new owners came in.
Unlike their predecessors, the new owners were well received, however it did become clear that they were in no position to finance the club through the 2MFL. Eventually in the 2023/24 season, Teteks would once again suffer relegation to the 3MFL, with not much optimism at getting back up in the first try due to the playoff system that decides promoted teams.
Ljuboten by contrast to their local counterparts, have had something to cheer about. Whilst their men's side have not tasted second division football since their relegation in the 1996/97 season, their women's side have dominated the 1WMFL for the last couple of seasons. The Blues have the added benefit that Teteks have put their support behind Ljuboten’s women's team, which would make Shkëndija their only local rival. However the Kuq e Zi’s women's team don’t enjoy the same financial support as their men's counterpart and so it doesn’t seem likely that they will match Ljuboten any time soon.
The effects of this war however will have a lasting effect on both Teteks and Ljuboten, as neither side is allowed to play in the city stadium. The stadium, originally built for FK Teteks, is meant to receive renovations after many years of being left to rot. However the decision to kick out Teteks and Ljuboten has not gone over well with not just the Macedonian locals, but also with many Macedonians across the country, who see it as blatant racism by the mayor Bilal Kasami, who himself is ethically Albanian.
The mayor did offer the explanation that the stadium should not be used for anything other than top flight matches and that new pitches will be in the works, however that did not explain why Ljuboten’s women's team was not allowed to play there or why a 3MFL playoff match between Bashkimi and Vëllazërimi was held at the stadium either. There have also not been any plans laid out for new pitches, which has led to even more frustration.
Whatever may be, the current situation in Tetovo leaves Shkëndija as the only winner, with all renovation projects for the stadium being centered around them and them alone.
