News, news, news

I’m about to puke.
Dragan Mance passed away 31 years ago. Average Fan is about to have a quiet day with lighting a candle and remembering with old videos.
No way.
Average Fan opens the news feed and a railway carriage sized dung and garbage starts to flow. That’s all about having a quiet remembrance.
Let’s start with football.
The team’s management gathers together again, trying again to elect a president instead of the temporary Ivan Ćurković.
Rumours say that it’s been a done deal for a while, as the current management put vice president Milorad Vučelić to the presidental chair underhand. The election that is supposed to be held on 12th (or 14th) September is just a formality. Of course it’s not official yet, but more or less you can take it as a shoo-in. Mondo.rs tells about the other candidate Nenad Bjeković has no actual support after the current leadership discharged everyone who was about to vote for him. Ćirković just added, Vučelić would be a much better candidate than him. (Ćirković will surely not enter as a candidate this time.)

Let’s not try to find out what he got from the management for this declaration.

What really made my eyebrows raise was a half-sentence by Mondo saying that fans also support Vučelić against Bjeković. I’d really like to look into the eyes of these alleged fans (in case this rumour is not fake), and I’d like to see each and every one of them the certification from a psychiatrist (with stamp and signature) that they are all sane.

***

Aleksandar Džikić is rumoured to stand up from KK Partizan’s bench. The head coach has been weary of the continuous uncertainty, the pressure, but most of all of the double standards that have been used against Partizan lately. Sources mention Džikić has been considering this decision since when it came to light that there will still be a Serbian team in Eurocup.

Originally Partizan was this team, but the Serbian Basketball Association said that if Partizan entered the competition, the team would be excluded from the Serbian championship. Partizan finally decided to cancel entering the series - meanwhile they had enough troubles with FIBA as well - then they thought this newly founded basketball Champions League could be a kind of life-belt for the team.

And this team is not else than... FMP!
Thank you, Čoki, thank you, KSS!
I’m not surprised at all that it was too much for Aleksandar Džikić. It’s a miracle that he could bear it all until now.
What is more, the successor of Džikić was also mentioned. The press told about Miroslav "Muta" Nikolić as KK Partizan’s possible next head coach. Nikolić is currently the second trainer of the Serbian men’s national basketball team.

Miroslav Nikolić

(photo: zurnal.rs)

A slight blessing in disguise is that the basketball team signed another player, 22-year-old Stefan Pot, who already debuted in the team at a friendly pre-season game against Besiktas (Partizan won to 83:77).

Stefan Pot

(photo: mondo.rs)

That’s all for now.

***

And now stand up and salute silently for a minute.
Legends live. In our hearts, in our memories, on photos, in videos and on the walls of buildings.
Dragan Mance - † 03. 09. 1985.

(photo made by the author)

Scandalous, interrupted presidental (non-)election - a usual day in the office for FK Partizan’s management

FK Partizan’s management had decided to elect a new president on 24th May. Ivan Ćurković, who’s been currently reigning, functions only as a commissioned president after kicking out the resign of Zoran Popović. The leadership thought this was the right time to elect a new boss.
First there was a great hype around it. The entire assembly was taken to the Zemun training complex, but what was surely the best, it was all broadcasted live on Youtube.
Oh, by the way, journalists were banned out from the event.
What we knew earlier was that there were two presidential candidates, Ivan Ćurković and Nenad Bjeković.

Seriously, was there nobody better?

The scandal started at the arrival of the members. First security guards didn’t want to allow Ostoja Mihajlović to enter. Mihajlović allegedly threatened to call the police, if he was not allowed inside.
In the meantime Partizan’s legendary players arrived, one after the other: Momčilo Vukotić, Ivica Kralj, Savo Milošević, Zvonko Varga, Zvonko Živković (to name a few) and the crowd grew bigger and bigger at the entrance gate. There was candidate Nenad Bjeković among them, too, but if you watched well, you could see Dragan Đurić as well.
Needless to say, the media LOVED the scene, cameras were all on target.

Then finally they were allowed, except for Ostoja Mihajlović.

Bjeković arrives with his hangers-on

(photo: mondo.rs)

At the building’s entrance door security guards checked everyone with metal detectors.

"Everyone" means everyone

(photo: Twitter)

There were many security guards around. As if politicians would have visited SC Teleoptik’s training field, yet in reality just a bunch of demimonde mafiosi Partizan’s leadership wanted to elect a new president.

Rumours talk about Bjeković asking the Serbian police minister to send security guards to Zemun, because, as he said "certain forces will surely cause incidents to make the assembly unable to vote".

Guards with dogs

(photo: informer.rs)

Before the start the opponents led by Bjeković met Vuletić to discuss the case of Ostoja Mihajlović, whether they should let him inside or not. (To be very honest, as my Serbian is still not enough to understand the entire discussion here, I can guess what they were all about. One thing is sure though, Vuletić loves to hear his own voice.)
I made a couple of screenshots.

Since when resembles Vuletić the love child of Jabba and Winnie the Pooh?

When great minds (mwahaha) meet

Then this company entered the chamber. Vuletić grabbed the microphone to open the election.
I swear, they didn’t need more than two minutes to end up yelling and cursing. If I understood well, the problem was that the supporters of Bjeković wanted to have the floor, but Vuletić denied their request saying there was no time for that.
Hell broke loose. Some shouted "it’s unbelievable", "it’s impossible", "it’s mafia". First Savo Milošević had an outburst.

Then Zvonko Varga had a bitter shoutout demanding more respect for former players.

At this point they wanted to vote for validating the election board, but instead Dragan Đurić literally yelled off Miloš Vazura, who was standing at the microphone.

Vazura couldn’t keep things under his control. I didn’t even know this man was this nervous and frustrated and can’t handle conflicts this much.

Then Momčilo Vukotić and Milan Obućina had a short, but very heated argument.

For God’s sake, it was embarrassing and shameful for ME to see the club’s legends getting into such an undeserved situation.

Meanwhile Vazura threw a tantrum demanding to get Đurić out of the room, because he (allegedly) cursed Vazura’s mother.

Just my two cents: being Vazura’s mother is a curse in itself. Let’s not hurt the elderly lady even more.

Then Savo Milošević almost had a physical fight with Milan Obućina. Finally Gordan Petrić had to grab and pull away Milošević before hitting Obućina. (Later Bjeković tried to calm Milošević down.)

(photo: zurnal.rs)

Then the assembly was about to vote, but there were a few people who were present with power of attorney (e.g. Mile Jovičić among others, who had the power of attorney of Tomislav Karadžić). At this point another verbal karate started, because some claimed those with power of attorney should not vote, their votes are invalid. They came up with FSS’s regulations which forbid such "remote" voting. The opposition argued that voters with power of attorney could vote at the previous presidental election without problem. Finally after long struggle they agreed that power-of-attorney-bearers can also vote.
You can watch the entire show here:

At this point came the most normal point of this whole circus. Gordan Petrić had the floor and spoke.

"First, I’d like to congratulate to the team for winning the Cup and being able to enter Europa League. The credit goes to Ivan Tomić and his coach staff to make the team stable. Now, people, what’s going on here? I see people turning against each other who have been friends for 30 years, whom I looked up on, when I was a child. And these people can’t agree on a single thing now! I beg you to co-operate and help Partizan, and if it’s not possible, then I walk out, grow a long beard and move to the mountains instead."

He got a big applause.
Then Vučelić spoke, thankfully it was short. He practically left the chair saying that it’s impossible to work under such circumstances.

That’s all for now, but it’s surely not the end yet.