World football's governing body FIFA has extended a deadline for the Bosnian Football Association (NSBIH) to bring itself in line with international rules until 2012, an official said on Sunday. "The normalisation committee's mandate is extended to the end of 2012," Jasmin Bakovic, NSBIH secretary general, told AFP.
"By then, both entity associations as well as regional ones need to adjust their statutes and elect leadership." FIFA appointed the six-member normalisation committee and tasked it with running Bosnian football in April.
The federation had failed to adopt a statute that would lead to a single-member presidency rather than the existing ethnic-based tripartite presidency - consisting of a Croat, a Muslim and a Serb member.
At the time, several Serb and Croat delegates opposed changes to the statute.
According to Dragan Kulina, a member of the normalisation committee, by the end of next year the NSBIH will elect a single president of the association in accordance with the new statute, adopted in May following FIFA requirements.
Since the 1992-1995 war, Bosnia consists of two entities - the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Serbs' Republika Srpska. Apart from the joint football federation, founded in 2002, each semi-autonomous half also has a federation of its own. Bosnia face Portugal in a Euro 2012 play-off next month.
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