The Rule of the Fan Clubs-Political Mafia

The majority terrorizes common sense

By Bojan Tončić

It’s hard to believe that highest officials’ infantile devotion to their favorite clubs in the only reason why these ball-playing firms are so privileged over here. Even if the hookup between high governmental officials and the masked crime of football clubs cannot be proved beyond doubt, everyone is witness to their brutal assaults at the state budget, their murky plans for freeing robbers from tax paying, the Premier and the Vice-Premier doing what they shouldn’t be doing and what they are not paid for. Everyone sees them boasting about their writing skills and unbiased attitudes towards the two biggest companies of thieves, Red Star and Partizan football clubs.

The scenes that deeply humiliated citizens of Serbia associated the atmosphere of the rise of fascism in Mann’s Mario and the Magician. As if it was not enough to broadcast live a notorious criminal demonstrating violence before the eyes of the regime – only a day later decent people had to swallow up an extra serving of insults and listen to a hooligan’s lecture in ethics – his side of the story supposed to prove that what everyone saw actually never happened.

The main character here is ex-convict Miloš Radisavljević Kimi, the leader of the organized crime fan club of Partizan, Alcatraz. By snatching the captain’s band from the arm of football player Marko Šćepović when Serbia’s champions suffered defeat from the Bulgarian team, Ludogorec, in Belgrade (August 6) he demonstrated in a live broadcast who the real boss of the club and power in Serbia was. Millions watched the obscure show of a press conference when the football player, shivering and obviously blackmailed, said that he had voluntarily given over his captain’s band, which, he claimed, had nothing to do with last year’s slapping in the face of his colleague Lazar Marković.

This evidenced once again how powerful was the organized crime that banked on its close ties with circles in politics, judiciary and the government. This evidenced again how unrestrained its violence could be, how governmental institutions withdrew when faced with its arrogance and how deep its hatred for those different was. These gangs’ racism and homophobia – which are far from being naïve – are nevertheless just ornamental in large-scale criminal dealings.

“People are left under the impression that has nothing to do with what actually happened. I was not aggressive for a single moment. True, I did jump a fence – as I usually do after matches – to collect flags and other choreography, but I did not take off his band. We are pals and that was not an act of violence. Everybody saw what happened. Why papers raise a hue and cry about this, why don’t they write about other things? I am telling you once again – I did not take off his band, he handed it over to me,” Radisavljević told the press.

Dimension of a Frightened Tyson

Šćepović just managed to stammer that he had felt obliged to give over his band to fans. “A stink about this case was created without any reason at all. This had nothing to do with the case of Lazar Marković, that’s quite a different dimension. I never felt threatened,” said Partisan’s lineman shivering. What gave everything even more grotesque proportions was bully Šćepović in a T-shirt with the picture of legendary boxing champion Mike Tyson.

Radisavljević and Šćepović were interrogated in the police station. According to unofficial sources, they repeated everything they had told the press conference.

Branko Ružić, the vice-president of Partizan and the vice-president of the Socialist Party of Serbia (in charge of the Ministry of the Interior) said spookily, “Of course it’s not normal when fans rush into the terrain or jump the fence. However, as some of them are flirting with certain politicians they feel free to do anything. I am on good terms with ‘gravediggers’ /a nickname for Partisan’s fans/ but one should differentiate true fans from those earning their living at stadiums. I think that Kimi truly loves Partizan and can be talked into avoiding such situations. But I will never be tolerant to those who would not realize that the interest of the club is something far beyond their personal goals.”

Well, the man can talk to the bully; after all, they say human communication is a great healer. And the bully could advise him how to get into a reconstructed government.

Hoodlums are the Bosses in Serbia

In fact, Radisavljević’s act of violence kind of conformed the law to the actual state of affairs since the so-called football fans have been for year a part of the untouchable governmental apparatus that counts on their services, mostly in drug trafficking, and regardless of a party in power. Last time the state promised a showdown with organized crime operating under the auspices of Red Star and Partizan clubs was a promise given by ex-president Boris Tadic in February 2011 after the mafia clash in downtown Belgrade leaving the then leader of the Alcatraz gang, Aleksandar Vavić, wounded with nine bullets. Nothing came out of it – either then or later. Vavić has a long criminal record with nine charges for illegal possession of arms, brutality, robbery and theft. But not a single charge against him has been raised by the prosecution, let alone has he been sentenced for anything.

The explanation for this leaves one sick and tired: by the Cosa Nostra scenario, the police collect evidence, the prosecution starts working on it but there is no political will for an actual trial.

Kimi Radisavljević whom the media find more attractive is a true personification of fans’ value system: on several occasions he’s been suspected of drug trafficking and interrogated by the police but became known by a larger audience when he openly threatened Brankica Stanković, journalist for the B92 TV and author of the Insider serial digging into the state’s attitude toward hooligans and the outbreak of violence at the football match between Partizan and Schachtjor in December 2009. He had staged a gruesome performance with fans throwing a plastic mannequin representing the journalist and chanting, “You are poisonous like a snake, you will meet Ćuruvija’s fate.”

For two years round the clock Brankica Stanković has been having a police escort. Radisavljević was firstly sentenced to 16-month imprisonment and then, in mid-July 2013, to another four months for physically assaulting policemen on March 2004 when the mob torched the Belgrade Mosque. No one was sentence for torching the mosques: the indictment had been shamelessly revised. Mufti of Belgrade Muhamed Jusufspahić testified that Kimi and his farther, Rade, had not set fire on the mosque but actually putting it out and helping the injured. Šćepović was trembling, but not Jusufspahić. Maybe on that Walpurgis Night in downtown Belgrade he really saw a bandit helping the injured and putting out a fire in the mosque in the backyard of which, according to his own testimony, someone had left piles of canisters for Zippo lighters.

A Creepy Relict and Arkan’s Model

More than two years ago the Prosecution demanded a ban on 14 fan groups: Alcatraz, Belgrade Boys, Lunatics-Padinska Skela, Ultra Boys, Ultras, Anti-Roma, South Family, Headhunters, NBG, Shadows, Extreme Boys, Honor Guardians, Brain Damage and United Force 1987. None was banned despite their numerous racist and violent actions. They all operate by the same hierarchy; their leaders are grey eminences in touch with the police and politicians, go on tours with players and club leadership and give the green light to the trades of players.

“These extremely closed groups demonstrated that they were more powerful even than tycoons and that their influence on sports was bigger. In the Milosevic era those people were used for manipulation and closely connected with crime but with political parties as well – nothing has changed to this very day. Big money is in play here. The problems is that the agencies supposed to fight against this organized crime are partisan plots,” says lawyer Marko Nicović, former head of the Belgrade police force and high official of Interpol.

The state has no answer to the recruitment centers for bandits, tailored by the model of war criminal Željko Ražnatović Arkan who had turned Red Star fans into a genocidal-drug dealing horde. At the same time it fanatically assists professional clubs that have only in Serbia survived as a creepy relict of the communist era, those citizens’ associations that should have bankrupted long ago by all standards. Vice-Premier Aleksandar Vučić, a recidivist Red Star fan, formed a work group that totally unjustified – and especially unjustified by national interests or those of citizens – keeps Red Star, with an over 60-million debt, alive. Premier Ivica Dačić, who indirectly runs Partizan, announced privatization of the two clubs but still dares not to make a radical cut in those national institutions with far better standings than ruined hospitals and schools.

It’s hard to believe that highest officials’ infantile devotion to their favorite clubs in the only reason why these ball-playing firms are so privileged over here. Even if the hookup between high governmental officials and the masked crime of football clubs cannot be proved beyond doubt, everyone is witness to their brutal assaults at the state budget, their murky plans for freeing robbers from tax paying, the Premier and the Vice-Premier doing what they shouldn’t be doing and what they are not paid for. Everyone sees them boasting about their writing skills and unbiased attitudes towards the two biggest companies of thieves, Red Star and Partizan football clubs. Mayor of Belgrade Dragan Đilas is not an exception; not long ago he subsidized the two mafia club with one-hundred-thousand Euros each. This is simply not normal. This is the more so dangerous since the masses, impoverished but in love with football and players, have understanding for Dačić and Vučić’s hobby. Permanent “petitioning” by sport lovers certainly encourages the practice of helping the rich at the detriment of the poor.

All this has nothing to do with coincidence or wrong assessment. This is merely about a masochistic, suicidal consensus, a demonstration of the majority terrorizing common sense.