The Živković-saga - part 2

As seen previously, what we already know:

- Andrija Živković’s contract with Partizan expires this June. The club must either sell the player as soon as possible or they must extend the contract with him, because if they can’t sell him before his contract expires, then the club must pay a punishment fee of 2,5 million euros to a certain Pini Zahavi

- This agreement with Pini Zahavi has a key role in this story, yet the contract about this agreement hasn’t been seen by anyone. Both Andrija Živković and his father claim that they had never seen the contract in question, nor they had signed it. Those who supposed to know about it, e.g. the former FK Partizan president Dragan Đurić denies everything, while the club’s sports director Albert Nagy didn’t say any fact about the contract.

- Fans are upset, while current sports director Ivica Iliev leads the most disgusting atrocity campaign in the media against Živković, blaming the young player as the only scapegoat for the situation emerged. This campain, that sometimes crossed even the borders of perversion divided the fans even more.

Before we continue the story, let’s take a good look at this Pini Zahavi. Those average fans who get their infos from reading the news might not know much about him, apart from he is from Israel and works as a football agent. During the past days I searched a bit about Zahavi on my own pat, just to know who is he and what is his actual role in this tale.

Pini Zahavi started buying and selling football players in the early 1990's. Since then he became one of the most influental - if not the most influental - so-called "super agent". He owns the rights of such players as Carlos Tévez or Neymar. It's not only football he is involved in (though football is his main activity), he is in close contact with top category businessmen, politicians and CEO's. It was mainly his "credit" that Roman Abramovich became the owner of FC Chelsea. Zahavi has interests mainly in Premier League, though he is the owner of Belgian team Mouscron among others. He bought the Belgian team some time in 2010 for 8,5 million euros, as he said "for the price of a young talent". For this he used a dummy company in Malta with Jean-Luc Gripond (former FC Nantes president) and a certain Teny Yerima, a football agent from Cameroon as co-owners. He has other interests of the same kind in Luxembourg, Gibraltar and the US as well. He is the co-owner of Quality Sports Investments as well as Football Ireland (the owners of these companies are Roman Abramovich, Jorge Mendes - another influental football agent - and Peter Kenyon, FC Chelsea's CEO). He has numerous other offshore businesses all around the world.

Pini Zahavi

(photo: theguardian.com)

When FIFA banned third party ownership at player transfers (agents and investors are prohibited to take part in transfers), Pini Zahavi and other dodgy rascals found out how they can avoid regulations by using legal loopholes to still make profit. They bought insignificant small clubs that were on the verge of bankruptcy (sometimes they immediately sold it on paper to a close friend or business partner), and as from then on they were club owners (either by person or by those "coverers" mentioned earlier) they could buy any player they wanted. Then these players were soon sold to top category clubs for a lot of money. Zahavi keeps at least 4-5 more clubs in his hand out of Mouscron, e.g. Apollon Limassol from Cyprus or Maccabi Haifa from Israel among others. FIFA is helpless, because no illegal activity can be proven against them.

Zahavi & co. got interested in Serbian football some time around 2014, presuming it as a great chance for great business. For this we must know that Serbian clubs are very poor, even Partizan and even the club on the other side of the street (aka Crvena Zvezda). Serbian clubs have no sponsors, they don't get any share from TV-broadcasting rights, their only income is when they can sell their players. Partizan and Zvezda literally asked these foreign agents to help them. These agents (Zahavi among others) paid the players' salaries and later they sold them to foreign clubs. One of the most well-known agents was a certain Fali Ramadani, his name might sound very familiar for many. He is the owner of LIAN sports agency, which has monopoly over Partizan-players. This Ramadani became Zahavi's "coverer" in Serbia. Ramadani's job is to sell and buy players, while Zahavi keeps the log rolling from his Tel-Aviv cave.

Back in 2012 the old scoundrel Zahavi bought all the rights of Lazar Marković from Partizan. He literally owned 100 % of Markec’s economical rights. He is said to pay 7 million euros for them to Partizan (others deny it, saying that Zahavi never pays more than 2-3 million for a young player). He bought Andrija Živković’s rights for 1,5 million euros with the reservation that he’ll get 25 % of Živković’s next transfer amount. This is the money he won’t receive, if Partizan can’t sell Živković before the expiration of his contract. Zahavi fails to get his money, and Partizan must pay the punishment they agreed about in the contract in question.

Former FK Partizan president Dragan Đurić was eventually willing to tell a few details about the Živković-case, but only after some mud-throwing. He claims that clubs do have the right to sell the players’ economical rights and back then, when the Zahavi-contract was signed, they indeed didn’t tell about it to the player and his family. The reason, as Đurić says was that they sold those rights that were owned by the club and not those owned by the family. (That was all the media could pull out of Đurić. Apart from this he keeps on washing his hands saying that he wasn’t even there when the club signed this contract with Zahavi. Yet he claims that the contract is 100 % legal.)
The media campaign against Živković continued. Someone released an open letter in the name of Partizan’s Youth School, which was nothing more than a fusty moralizing. In short, they demanded Andrija to be a nice, obedient boy, not to forget where he came from. Sports director Ivica Iliev continued the most disgusting, sanctimonious atrocity campaign in the media.

Iliev claims that they wanted to give a "blank contract" to Andrija, suggesting that the boy should write down under what kind of conditions he would be willing to extend his contract. Whatever Živković asks, the club will do it, anything that makes him extend the contract. What is more, Iliev even ordered TV-cameras to the meeting room to broadcast it live.
The whole scene didn’t take more than 15 minutes. Živković stood up without writing down a single word and walked out. Neither he signed it, nor he wrote anything into the blank contract.

Finally the management decided to suspend Živković for the rest of the season if he is not willing to extend his contract. They gave a deadline of 3rd February at 12:00 pm, Živković could decide until then whether they sign the contract or not.

What makes it especially grotesque is that Živković’s contract will expire only in June 2016. Until then they could have had more than enough time to decide and agree about the possible extending. Whose interest was it (and why) to have this soap opera in the winter break?

It did have its consequences. Jovica Živković released another open letter, where he told the entire Partizan-management where to get off. The very angry letter does not reveal further facts, the furious father declares only one thing: after this disgusting mud-throwing his son will not sign any contract until the summer. We didn’t have to wait too long for Iliev’s reaction. The sports director didn’t spare his poisonous verbal knives from Jovica Živković.
Finally, as anyone could guess it, Andrija Živković didn’t sign anything until the Thursday noon deadline. He had to leave the training camp in Cyprus, and from now on he must visit the trainings of Teleoptik together with all the other black sheeps of Partizan (Lazar Ćirković, Živko Živković, Predrag Luka, Filip Knežević).

The most tragic in it is that it is Andrija Živković, whom nobody ever asked what he actually wants.

The team released an open letter, if you have a strong stomach, you can read it here.

What is sure now, with this step Partizan pushed their fingers in their own eyes. After this scandal Andrija Živković will surely not extend his contract with the club. He will be a free agent, he can go wherever he wants, and Partizan must pay to Zahavi and Ramadani. Other than this, they’ll lose an amazingly talented, goal-scorer world champion right wing.
And let’s not talk about the consequences in the long run.

The Živković-saga

Disclaimer: This blogpost does not want to dispense justice, nor does it want to tell anyone where to get off. It’s not this blog’s job but of the legal services. I just try to summarize all those that happened so far - of course I'll include my own point of view as well, but that's strictly my very own, personal opinion, not some sort of "ex cathedra" manifestation. Anyone can add their opinion, in a cultured, educated manner.

As I wrote in an earlier blogpost, we could all have a sense at the end of the autumn season that Andrija Živković would not stay at Partizan. News spoke about a number of big, European clubs that would have gladly signed the young world champion, but none of them succeeded. Then came the news about a contract with the former manager, Pini Zahavi. The contract included a clause, namely if Živković is not sold until his contract with Partizan expires, then the club must pay almost two million euros of retention money to the Israeli manager.

An average fan would feel dizzy even at this point. What’s this?... What do you mean that the club must pay retention money, if they can’t sell the kid until the expiration of the contract?... Whose idea was this, and most of all, who agreed with it and who signed it?... For whom did it serve good and why? What did those lawyers say who examined the contract before signing it? Has any lawyer examined it at all, or they just signed it and done?...

At this point Partizan’s sports director, Ivica Iliev entered the picture and started his long media-tour. He told to Kurir if they can’t sell Živković, or Živković doesn’t extend his contract with the club, then Partizan may go bankrupt because of that retention money they have to pay to Zahavi (at this point the amount of money was already 2,5 million euros).

"If [Živković] doesn’t extend his contract [with Partizan], then Partizan must pay punishment fee. It means that we can put a padlock on the club. More than 200 families can find themselves in the street, and Andrija will be remembered as the player who made the club going bankrupt", cites Mozzartsport.

Maybe it’s just me, but Iliev seemed to start a kind of manipulative game even at this point. Nevertheless a day later Andrija Živković’s father, Jovica released an open letter. Apart from the heavy, overheated style of the letter

honestly, which parent would not be angry in such a situation, when it’s about their child?...

Živković sr. writes about background details that are at least thought-provoking. He even attached documents to his letter. In short: the father says, Partizan’s then-general secretary Darko Grubor claimed that Andrija Živković is their possession - most probably technically. It means, whatever happens to Živković (transfer, etc.), it is all Partizan’s tether, aka nobody, not even parents can have any word in it. The father goes further: it was the club (and its then-management) that pressured his son into this Pini Zahavi-contract. According to him, nobody was informed about this contract, neither the parents, nor the player and his agent. The father claims, the contract is hidden at a non-public place.

Obviously it’s somewhere at the club, but they will surely never put it public.

Furthermore, Jovica Živković denies those charges that blame him (and his son) with materialism, to be motivated by money only. The father adds, even Real Madrid (!!!) wanted to sign Andrija for 15 million euros (!!!), even though they would have immediately put him on loan. The father claims, other top European clubs had offers for his son, but they refused all of them, because Andrija wanted to play for Partizan.
After this a group of people who are allegedly Partizan-fans also released an open letter, in which they called the young player scapegoat (with additional offensive words), even calling him "zvezdaš".

As if they would have forgotten about Živković’s goals, matches, tricks he did for Partizan as well as his world championship.

Interesting that this open letter was published by a certain Vladimir Vuletić on his own Facebook profile. It’s that Vladimir Vuletić, who is otherwise the chairman of Partizan’s supervisory board.

"Fan letter". Yes. Sure. You get what I mean.

At this point an unbelievably disgusting mud-throwing has started. First Albert Nagy spoke, who was Partizan’s sports director during the Pini Zahavi-contract. He didn’t say many details, rather he just washed his hands. Then spoke Saša Ilić, who only made the upheaval even bigger with his statement, dividing the ab ovo confused, angry and puzzled fans.

I can speak about Saša Ilić only with the biggest possible respect, and now, as a simple, average fan I ask him with the biggest respect never ever to speak in public about what was said behind the doors of the locker-room.

Then even former Partizan goalkeeper Vladimir Stojković spoke, though nobody asked him. On the other hand, as he is in Israel now, he surely doesn’t know any more details about this case than an ordinary, news-reading fan. Meanwhile (upon non-confirmed news) the documents of the Živković-contract are at the police, but nobody mentioned what they investigate and who reported the case to the authorities.
The management keeps silent. (Vazura was just rolling his eyes.) Neither the current, nor the former management members are willing to speak (except for Albert Nagy). Former FK Partizan president Dragan Đurić denied everything. The others didn’t speak a word.
In the meantime Iliev tours around the entire sports media, keeping the public under pressure saying that it's all Živković’s fault, because the player prefers money more than Partizan. This made Živković’s current manager, Predrag Đorđević upset so much that even he released an open letter, in which he turns off the entire Partizan-management saying that it’s not else than blackmailing a 19-year-old kid, who would like to just play football for his beloved team, yet this beloved team’s management makes it impossible. While Iliev keeps the public, the players, the fans and Andrija Živković himself under pressure.

And well, the result is obvious: upon the current state of events Andrija Živković will surely not extend his contract with the club in the summer.

If you allow me to be this personal: I’m terrified by Iliev’s manipulations. I don’t know what he wants with it all, why he is doing it and for whom/what, but he should stop it right now, because it reached the disgusting level.
And if I may add a thought: if I were Živković, I would also not extend my contract. After he gave his heart and soul to the club, that he played and scored even being injured, after all this he is thrown away like an used piece of rag and he is dragged into the mire in front of the public... His heart goes for Partizan, but I personally can understand that he is fed up with it all. He is the most innocent of it all, yet it’s still his name that’s tainted.

The story hasn’t ended yet, but the next sequel is the topic of another blogpost.

News (and photos) of the day

Saša Ilić extended his contract with Partizan with one year, Živko Živković with two years.

(photos: Facebook/Fudbalski klub Partizan)