SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - The Bosnia-Herzegovina football federation has replaced its three-member leadership with a single president in order to comply with FIFA demands.

The federation's general assembly on Thursday elected Elvedin Begic to be the first single president of the body since it became a FIFA member in 1996. Like Bosnian politics, its football leadership has been ethnically split between a Bosniak, a Croat and a Serb since a war in the former Yugoslav republic ended in 1995.

Such a setup was unacceptable for FIFA and UEFA, which briefly kicked the country out of international competitions for two months last year until a "normalization" team was appointed to work on the necessary changes.

Bosnia currently tops its group in World Cup qualifying.

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