From that night media conference in the premises of Crvena zvezda, in November 2012, until today, Aleksandar Vučić takes care of sports, from amateur to top, finances and controls it in various ways. It depends on him which federation, national team or club will receive how much state or parastate money, where the stadium will be built or the sports hall renovated, who will manage sports organizations and associations, and even who will train national and club teams.
Many therefore expect and seek help from the state when they run into problems, such as sports clubs, first of all the most famous ones - Crvena zvezda and Partizan. Mostly those clubs are still heavily in debt, inherited and new, and with no visible signs that they will consolidate and normalize within the foreseeable future, but in every respect, from the pioneering school to the management and the fans.
TURNING ON THE SIGNAL LIGHT
However, Vučić's omnipotence in sports is first of all limited by the simple fact that he is a passionate fan of Crvena Zvezda (he himself boasted many times about his "supporting exploits" in his youth), and thus from the first day of his reign, he has been suspicious of Partizan fans, especially after in the fall In 2012, he rushed to save the failing Zvezda. And each subsequent year increased mistrust, because Partizan remained without trophies, especially in the two biggest sports, while at the same time the biggest rival collected titles and cups: by chance or not, in the last decade, Red Star footballers won eight Serbian championship titles (counting this year's), and basketball players seven, plus six more first places in the regional ABA league, while the black and whites have not won a championship trophy in football since 2017, and in basketball since 2014. in the Serbian league and since 2013 in the ABA league. And the painful wound of Partizan is the water polo club, one of the biggest in its sport in the world, which has literally sunk in the last decade. And not only did Zvezda win trophies and had a united, progressive management in the most important sports, but it also easily got rid of debt and found (got) big sponsors, while Partizan sank deeper and deeper into debt, and was also divided into Football Club and JSD on two progressive currents.
Although Vučić installed his party cadres in the administrations of Partizan clubs, channeled state and para-state money to rescue them from bankruptcy, and controlled the leaders of extreme fan groups to a good extent, over time Partizan fans throughout Serbia became his most numerous and organized opposition. They were especially hurt by the collapse of the club in basketball, because from the ancient times of Kićanović and Dalipagić, ending with the European title of the Đorđević and Danilović generation in 1992, Partizan became another name for a sport that has national status in our country, like Red Star in football. , with several domestic trophies won and the European title from 1991.
Due to an open conflict with the progressive authorities, Vučić for short, the famous coach Duško Vujošević had to leave the club and the Yugoslav Sports Association in 2015, one of the most deserving of Partizan's great name in the basketball world in the first decade of the 2021s. His forced removal further angered many fans, who sang and chanted even louder against Vučić. Through the organized criminal group of Aleksandar Stanković and Veljko Belivuk, there was strong disciplining of "Partizan's South" and the entire stands at the stadium and in the hall. Nevertheless, discontent was pouring out on the east and west sides of the JNA stadium, among the older fans, so the spirit of resistance persisted despite the repression, especially since Zvezda increasingly dominated Partizan in the two most popular sports. And the ulcer burst after Belivuk and the team were arrested at the beginning of XNUMX, so that Vučić was insulted more and more frequently and fiercely from the stands during Partizan's matches. It is quite possible that this turned on the "red lights" in the Presidency, because since then, more state aid has started, directly or indirectly: "we provided them with a strong sponsor", as Vučić says, and raising the Basketball Club from the ashes.
This is precisely why there are Partizan fans who, even in this euphoria, will claim, while the presidents of Partizan's management, as well as some well-known "gravediggers", thank the state and the president personally for their help and support that Vučić, by his actions and inactions since 2012, has set Partizan back on all fronts ; in addition to the biggest football club, the basketball club also failed, which has a special place in Partizan's family. Coincidentally or not, shortly after the progressives came to power, that club stopped winning domestic and regional titles, was relegated from the Euroleague, and what is perhaps the worst, lost its primacy in the younger categories as well, which can be easily seen today in the senior composition of Partizan because apart from the fact that local players are in the minority, none of them, except for Balša Koprivica in the pioneering age, went through Partizan's school.
Secondly, this kind of euphoria has already been seen when it comes to KK Partizan: "Pionir" shook at the end of the nineties when the club with local players reached the final four, and the Arena was packed many times during the Vujošević era, which was crowned in 2010 by placing in Final Four and winning third place in the Euroleague. At that time, foreign players already made up the starting line-up, but they were also local in a way, like the Czech Jan Vesely, and the local players were still in the majority in the senior team and had significant minutes and performance. Today, in many ways, it is different, because the parties are dominant both in terms of number and performance. Of course, this is not only a consequence of the collapse of our basketball, but also the global development of top sports and the open market, which led to the rush of players from all continents to European clubs, especially from the United States of America.
In such circumstances, our famous clubs with players from Serbia and the income they earn from tickets, sponsors and transfers, cannot match the big and rich Spanish, Turkish or Greek ones, nor can they reach the elite European competition, unless they come to their aid country. Even former authorities used state and parastate money to help clubs), and party officials sat in administrations. However, no one has ever occupied the clubs so much and made them dependent on the government, as Vučić and his team are the two biggest clubs, and their regional and local epigones many smaller clubs in all sports, down to the last village in Serbia.
KK Partizan also depends on the goodwill of the president of the country and, as some say, with his blessing, the legendary Željko Obradović returned to the club and numerous quality players were hired, so Partizan is once again at the top of European basketball. But, as one passionate "undertaker" wrote: he just finally showed mercy or was forced to help Partizan, since the next day he doubled state and parastate investments in Zvezda, so Nebojsa Čović, the president of the "red and whites", was able to pay "half of the Argentina national team".
In addition, some remind, although the Partizan basketball club has been led by a member of the Main Board of SNS, Ostoja Mijailović, for six years, and the main management is people close to this (every) government, no title has been won, and the question is whether they will this season as well, and at the same time, the tax debt grew from 4,5 to 7,2 million euros.
SPONSORS AND SILOS
With the return of Željko Obradović Žoc to the bench of Partizan in the summer of 2021, but also with the arrival of Zoran Savić a few months earlier as sports director, the club rose and in less than two years they managed to regain good results and glory and send images of a more beautiful and positive Serbia to the world.
The fans' love for the Basketball Club has been building for decades, and from those heated basketball nights in the Hall of Sports in New Belgrade, through Pionir to the Arena under all names, it has turned into something unique in this area - fans of other clubs from Vardar to Triglav should not be angry - and now the whole of Europe has become convinced of it again. When it was on the verge of being relegated from the ABA League eight years ago, Partizan played in front of full stands of "Pionir", so it is expected that now the "undertaker" will fill Stark Arena at every game of the Euroleague, and often also of the ABA League. A series of victories in the Euroleague and a place in the quarterfinals, with Žoč as the engine, but also the emblem, which annulled the absence (exile) of Vujošević, brought the fans into a trance and made the general public interested in KK Partizan, but also in basketball in general. Partizan's rise in recent months has brought a lot of positive things.
But most importantly, it would be good if the return of Obradović marked the return of a great basketball club to its old paths of success, its consolidation in every sense. But, it is still on a long stick. The current Partizan team costs a lot and will cost even more, which means even greater expenses for salaries, travel, ongoing maintenance and taxes, and the club already owes huge millions of euros in taxes. In the campaign "We have one Partizan", which was launched on a wave of euphoria due to the placement in the quarterfinals of the Euroleague, almost two million euros have been collected so far, which is certainly commendable, but it is only part of the debt of seven million euros. And when, on the first day of the action, club president Mijailović boasted that half a million euros had already been collected, Vučić then told him in the performance mentioned at the beginning of the text to pay them into the state account immediately the next day.
And it will most likely be like that in the future, because there are no indications that the president of SNS and the country will change anything in his rule, and of course, not even in the sports sphere, especially when it comes to Zvezda and Partizan. Regardless of whether or not he was forced in 2021 to secure strong sponsors for KK Partizan because of the long-term anger that had accumulated in the "undertaker", things are going well for him at the moment, because the managers of Partizan are praising him, from the stands in the last two months they shout against him, and in recent days the people have had more fun with Partizan's good games than with price increases and Kosovo. However, probably Vučić himself knows that he is now completely out of the focus of the "undertaker", because they have been in a positive winning trance lately and really support their club and generally do not mention it, which can turn around in an instant.
But let's go back to the basic problem, which still exists because the all-powerful Vučić did not want to implement the privatization of the biggest clubs, even though it was announced several times in the last decade, nor to encourage the state authorities to clean the sport from the influx of criminals. and a hooligan. It seems that it is more appropriate for him to supervise the payments and payments in Zvezda and Partizan, the Football Association and elsewhere where his personnel manage, as well as to control the extreme fans, than to leave the clubs completely to serious businessmen and real fans. Or that, if absolutely necessary, the state officially becomes a co-owner, but that every dinar invested and earned be transparent. And the current action of Partizan fans, as well as the fact that this season they have already allocated five million for subscription tickets and tickets, shows that the club could perhaps become the property of smaller and larger shareholders - fans - like the "socios" in the three most famous Spanish clubs - Real , Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao. Then I guess it should be known who costs how much, that sponsors do not have to be approved by the head of state or some other powerful person, but that it is in their interest to be with a popular club. Also, that real fans get the right to vote, and not that the club depends on controversial characters and a few hundred hooligans. In the same way, those who really love the club sit in the board, and it still pays for them to invest, and that they and the finances are under the control of the delegates, and not that the clubs are run by people trusted by the head of state, in addition, it is completely non-transparent and in gray zone. There are, of course, arguments against this or that privatization, but it seems that everything is better than the way Zvezda and Partizan operate today, as well as Vojvodina and many other clubs that are still citizens' associations under the supervision of the state or local self-governments on the one hand side and various suspicious personalities on the other.
MONEY DOESN'T BUY FRIENDS
That's why Partizan's great return to the top of European basketball can easily be interrupted, because there are no rules and no laws apply here. A lot depends on one man who tomorrow can simply say that the state budget is limited (as it really is), and since the ownership of the club is undefined and subject to various influences, visible and invisible, no one serious, unless he really has to, will invest his money. Apart from the fact that the state (Vučić) often non-transparently, and one might even say illegally, pays money to clubs, that is, directs state and parastatal companies to be sponsors, this type of support does not bring long-term stability and improvement. This is at least shown by the example of Red Star FC, which in the previous decade was supported abundantly and in many ways by the state, so it won numerous domestic titles and improved its results on the European stage, but essentially it is only a pale shadow of the old Zvezda in every sense, and to real fans. the celebrated club is not at all pleased with the forced support of Vučić and the state.
Maybe the Partizan Basketball Club will get lucky, because it was shorter than FC Crvena Zvezda at one time and to a good extent preserved the system that brought victories and titles for many years, and so despite, but also thanks to Vučić, during whose time Partizan players fell into despair and that's why his name was pronounced with hatred for more than a decade, he once again reached the top of Europe and held his own. Not only does it sound paradoxical, but, let the "gravediggers" not be angry, judging by the previous work and engagement of the main character (i) of this story, and by what surrounds him, it is difficult to do.
