On Thursday, June 11, 2026, starting at 12:00 pm, the Event Football and Sports Diplomacy – Towards the FIFA 2026 World Cup will be held in Hall II, on the day of the start of the biggest global event, the FIFA Football World Cup in the USA, Canada and Mexico. The event represents the second and final part of the traditional event of the 9th Rijeka Days of Sports Law, Sports Policy and Sports Diplomacy. The meeting is held under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism and Sports of the Republic of Croatia, the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County and the City of Rijeka, and is organized by the Faculty of Law in Rijeka through the Institute of Sports Law, Sports Policies and Sports Diplomacy and the Center for Sports of the University of Rijeka.
The Event is organised on the June 11 which has been declared the International Day of Play by the UN.
With this event, we want to give our Rijeka’s touch to this important event in which we popularize science. Namely, the event is divided into two parts. The first part is dedicated to the presentation of the book “Under their own colors. The beginnings of the Croatian national football team” (2025), by: Hrvoje Gržina, Vladimir Iveta, Marijo Stipančević. The book will be presented by one of the authors, Vladimir Iveta, also the deputy general secretary of the Croatian Football Federation.
The second part is dedicated to our football players from Rijeka who were an important segment of our national football team. Saša Peršon played in the first matches of the 1990s, Elvis Brajković was part of the team that competed in the first major competition, the UEFA European Championship in 1996, and Daniel Šarić was an important part of the team that competed in the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Japan and Korea. Finally, since the championship is held on the North American continent, the best promoter is Damir Kreilach, legendary player and captain of the MLS (North American professional football league) clubs Real Salt Lake and Vancouver Whitecaps.