The Macedonia – Wales World Cup qualifier will kick off an hour earlier after FFM’s request was accepted by FIFA.

This was a good move by the Football Federation of Macedonia. The 2014 World Cup qualification match between Macedonia and Wales was originally scheduled to start at 20.00 CET, but now it will kick off an hour earlier, at 19.00 CET.

The explanation for this move is that, on the same day at 21.00, the Macedonian basketball national team play an important game against Serbia at the 2013 EURO in Slovenia. Due to the great success in recent years by the basketball team, Macedonian fans have huge interest in following the EURO and many of them will prefer watching the basketball game over the football game against Wales if the two took place at the same time. That’s why FFM decided to move the game up in order to attract more fans to come to the stadium, and then they can watch the basketball game as well.

Unlike the national football team, the basketball national team has experienced success as two years ago, at the 2011 EURO in Lithuania, they finished in 4th place!

There won’t be a similar problem with the other qualification game four days later against Scotland as it’s a day off at the basketball EURO tournament.