The Football Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina, aware of the fact that it did not own training facilities for its national team selections, drafted out plans for the construction of a modern training centre in the mid-2000s, quickly securing funds for the project and deciding on the location. A suburb of Zenica was chosen because the town's Bilino Polje Stadium was the national team's home ground at the time. The implementation of the project coincided with large-scale, politically motivated turbulences in the organization that eventually led to a FIFA-issued short-term suspension on all competitive national team selections.[3] The instability in the governing body of Bosnian football led to the shelving of the project, for it to reemerge only after an UEFA-sponsored Normalization Committee was formed, which included the likes of Ivica Osim, Dušan Bajević, Faruk Hadžibegić, Darko Ljubojević and Sead Kajtaz.[4] The committee, being assigned full executive power as a means for solving the aforementioned issues in the FA, immediately sped up the training centre project, with construction beginning in early 2011.[5] Construction was completed in late 2013, with the centre being officially inaugurated by Michel Platini on 2 September 2013.[2] On 21 September 2015, after a two-year expansion project, new facilities, including an indoor arena were opened.
Facilities
The training centre consists of one artificial and two natural turf pitches, an indoor Futsal arena,[6] terraces, a 27-room hotel, wellness centre, restaurant, indoor and outdoor cafés, two large conference rooms, a recreational lobby and designated administration and technical premises.[7] Furthermore, it is encompassed by a large private parking lot, entrance gates and a main square.[8] On 23 October 2015 the centre was granted UEFA and FIFA PRO licences, and has subsequently hosted women's and youth qualifiers.[9][10]
Bosnia & Herzegovina