Late last year, citing the "sensitivities" of both countries, European football's governing body decided that Spain and Gibraltar would not play against each other in qualifying for Euro 2016.
At the time, it was a silly precedent to set, one designed to soothe a major footballing power. There was never any chance of anything more than an embarrassing protest in Gibraltar.
That decision now seems criminally casual. In pandering to one country while ignoring others with genuine concerns, UEFA has put itself in the middle of a situation that could result in real political violence.
Through their many national iterations, Serbia and Albania have been at each other's throats for the best part of 650 years. They were also drawn together in Euro qualifying.
However, neither country rates on UEFA's star scale. And so nobody cared very much that those two teams were put in an impossible situation.
Suddenly, it's left to a bunch of twentysomething mopes to ensure nothing they do on the field results in deaths off it.
It has happened before in that part of the world, and on an unimaginable scale.
Some still trace the beginnings of the murderous breakup of Yugoslavia to a riotous and ultimately abandoned 1990 game between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade.
That contest looked eerily similar to the one held on Tuesday night in Belgrade. It ended in identical scenes, with players fleeing the pitch while pursued by fans.
Serbia and Croatia have since been able to sort out their differences on the sporting front, though cautiously. Serbia and Albania are a different case. Kosovo – claimed by both nations – remains a spur to war. The enmities are fresh and marrow deep.
This game should not have happened. Or it should have happened inside an empty stadium in a third country.
But it did and in the midst of it, someone flew a small helicopter drone over the pitch trailing the flag of Greater Albania. A neutral official – say, English referee Martin Atkinson – should have had the good sense to retrieve it.
Instead, Serbian defender Stefan Mitrovic yanked it out of the air. Predictably, everyone in the stadium lost their minds.
Some Albanians attacked Serbs. Some Serbs attacked Albanians. Many players tried to calm the situation, but it was sliding out of control as Serbian hooligans began to flood the field, looking for blood. It doesn't matter who started what. The players are only proxies here. They react in sad patterns laid out in every patriotic handbook.
A day later, we're already knee-deep in conspiracy theories – a particular specialty of the Balkans. The Serbian foreign minister has accused Olsi Rama of flying the drone from his seat in the stands. Rama is the brother of Albania's President, Edi Rama. Both men deny it.
President Rama didn't help things when he got on Twitter and, under the guise of congratulating his own team, decided to poke Serbia in the eye: "Regret for our neighbours who presented themselves badly with their ugly show."
The Serbian football association helped things even less when they called the drone flight "a terrorist action planned in advance."
At this point, it's a war of words. In the Balkans, that's always a hair's breadth from a war of bullets.
It's pointless to blame either country here. This is on UEFA. They invited two enemies to dinner, having made no preparations for what might result. What happens under their roof is their fault.
UEFA has charged both countries with rule violations. As the home team, the Serbs face a laundry list of misdemeanours. The Albanian team has been accused of "refusing to play." It's an idiotic suggestion – the players were about to be overrun by a mob – but failing to charge them with something would only ratchet up tension.
UEFA will hold a tribunal on Oct. 23. In most cases, one or the other country is found at fault. The malfeasant suffers a 3-0 loss by rule.
This is the instance in which some weaselly path must be found around the rulebook. Quite literally, lives may be on the line.
It's an easy solution – this game never happened. The final score is 0-0. The next game between the two is also cancelled – final score 0-0. Beyond that, neither country faces any sanction.
It's not fair, but it's fair enough. This solution also has the salutary effect of taking the angry onus off either nation and putting it on UEFA.
FIFA, UEFA and the rest like to gibber about sport as the balm of politics. It flatters them to imagine themselves standing above the ugliness of the world.
Now that they've dithered right into the midst of it, they can no longer hide behind the nobility of sport. They've created a messy human problem, which requires a shifty, even dishonest, human solution.