How Hajduk Split Supporters Started an Uprising in Croatian

[Guest]

Good article

http://bleacherrepor...oatian-football

How Hajduk Split Supporters Started an Uprising in Croatian Football

By Aleksandar Holiga, Featured Columnist

Nov 26, 2014

• Share
  
• Tweet
  

meager crowds are unfortunately a common site at Dinamo home matches these days. But this was the Derby, the biggest game in Croatian football that used to be a magnet for both sets of fans. Even if it had lost much of its allure in recent years, there were supposed to be more than 2,000 travelling Hajduk fans alone, according to previous media reports.

And yet, apart from the stadium security and stewards, there wasn’t a single soul in the away end.

Then things got surreal. Dinamo players took to the pitch, they shook hands with match officials and lined up to observe a minute of silence, because it was the anniversary of the Fall of Vukovar, a tragic event from the Homeland War.

They stood there—steady, silent and alone—only accentuating the absurd drama of the moment.

Their opponents never came out of the locker room. As Dinamo proceeded with team practice instead of playing the game, Hajduk were already on their way down south and back to Split, where—as we would soon find out—preparations for a homecoming party had already started. Later that day, the team would be greeted by 8,000 supporters in their Poljud stadium, lighting flares, singing and jumping as if they’ve just been brought a trophy, or at least an away win against Dinamo.

The story of what happened prior to the kick-off that never was soon unfolded. Some travelling Hajduk fans were denied (personalized) tickets because they were on some sort of a “black list”. Others—a majority of them, as it turned out—were held up by the police on the other side of the city.

The Torcida, as Hajduk supporters are collectively known, is a well-organized group. When it became clear that some of its members couldn’t get into the stadium although they didn’t have a police record (at least not one that they knew of), the word spread quickly and the rest refused to enter the ground, returning their tickets instead. Those guarded by the police were promptly contacted and told not to come, because everyone was going back home to Split.

And then the team decided they won’t play the game.

“Hajduk is a people’s club. We are a club of our members, our fans, and it’s our duty to stand by them—like they always stand by our team,” says Hajduk chairman, Marin Brbic. “What happened in Zagreb was the last drop and we had to say that that was enough. But we all know it wasn’t just about this. We’ve been systematically targeted for a long time, because Croatian football is set up to serve one club and one man—that club is Dinamo, and that man is Zdravko Mamic.”

Brbic feels that Mamic, Dinamo Zagreb chief executive, holds all the power within the Croatian Football Federation, with Hajduk being disfranchised. He believes the CFF has double standards when it comes to the nation’s other “big” club.

A vast majority of supporters share this view, because Hajduk has no representation in the key bodies of the federation or the league and evidence shows they have been sanctioned more severely than others for similar offences, like fans lightning flares and chanting insulting slogans aimed at the CFF and Mamic. Whereas other clubs get away with small fines, Hajduk regularly have to pay bigger sums and recently they’ve been given a one-match crowd ban just after serving a previous two-match punishment—for something that took place in an away game.

But it’s not just Hajduk fans who are complaining. In every league match that attracts at least a half-decent crowd, you will hear the same chants.

When Croatia national team played Italy in Milan earlier this month, their supporters stopped the game twice by throwing flares and chanting those slogans. While there can be no justification for that kind of behaviour, it’s important to note that it wasn’t just a random act of mindless hooliganism. It was a planned cry for attention to problems within the CFF and a message to its leaders.

Claudio Villa/Getty Images

Ironically, Dinamo fans are the ones who have been most systematically oppressed.

Ticketing at their stadium has been personalized, supposedly in a bid to prevent violence in the stands. But a controversial section of the law enables clubs to work with the police—or even act on it themselves—in banning anyone they label as “troublemakers”. Dinamo have an ever-expanding “black list” of their own supporters and it’s enough protest against the boss, Zdravko Mamic, to get your name on it.

Thomas Bauer, co-owner of a Zagreb-based advertising agency, says there may now be around 2,000 “blacklisted” Dinamo fans. He is one. Earlier this month, the club decided to ban the entire section of the stadium where people chanted and demanded from Mamic to leave: Bauer was there and now he can’t get into the ground he has called his second home since the 1980’s.

Other fans showed solidarity with those who had been banned, and they don’t come anymore, either. Many more have simply become estranged with Dinamo under Mamic. “Too much is being written about Hajduk now,” says Bauer. “And too little about the fact that Zagreb is boycotting Dinamo.”

So some of the travelling Hajduk supporters have been blacklisted as well at the Maksimir stadium. Then the rest of the group refused to enter and the team backed them, deciding they won’t play the game without their supporters. They all acted as one, which came as a shock to others, especially to the people at the federation.

The paradox of the whole situation lies in the fact that Hajduk are a joint stock company, whereas Dinamo are a citizens’ association that receives public funding and should offer all of its members the right to elect and be elected. But even though the majority of Hajduk shares is still owned by the City of Split, it’s the members who elect the Board and they have a significant say in club affairs. Dinamo, on the other hand, have one boss—Zdravko Mamic—who decides on everything and uses various bureaucratic trickery to prevent free club elections, although almost 50,000 people signed a petition demanding them.

The “Zajedno za Dinamo” (Together for Dinamo) initiative, which campaigns for member-based democracy at the club, publicly stated its support to Hajduk for refusing to play in the Derby. Other league clubs are divided in their views, but everyone acknowledges there are deeper problems in Croatian football, reflecting wider issues in the nation that is still struggling with economic recession, high unemployment rates and an ongoing political crisis.

EuroFootball/Getty Images

The federation has been plagued by various high-profile scandals in recent times, including corruption in the referees’ organization, convictions for match-fixing and even a physical attack on the Hajduk chairman by a highly ranked CFF official. All that discontent has been boiling among fans for a long time; regardless of whether they support Hajduk in their refusal to play or not, the prevalent opinion is that things have gone too far. It’s impossible to ignore problems and expect football to just normally continue in Croatia.

It would seem that federation leaders acknowledge that as well. Instead of just hitting Hajduk with another set of sanctions (apart from registering the cancelled match 3-0 to Dinamo and ordering Hajduk to reimburse their rival for the cost of the organisation), they first invited Brbic to a “constructive meeting” (per CCF official website, article in Croatian), admitting there were mistakes on their part as well, but saying they want to openly discuss things in the best interest of Croatian football.

But it may be already too late.

Hajduk accepted the invitation, but prior to that they had already called for the entire CFF’s Executive Committee, including Zdravko Mamic, to resign. Their “black list”, so to speak, also includes federation president, the once-iconic striker Davor Suker, who has been away on business for days. The time of the meeting hasn’t been disclosed yet.

On Saturday, Hajduk are due to play NK Zagreb on an empty Poljud stadium, serving a crowd ban. But there will be a crowd in the streets of Split that day, as the supporters are organizing a mass protest against the CFF. Tens of thousands of people are expected, the atmosphere in the city is extremely explosive and it’s starting to look like some sort of an uprising.

It’s simple, really: When you ban people from protesting in the stadium, they take it to the streets. And no one can tell what will happen then.

[6superbarry6 14,159]

Brilliant if only our fans could stick together like this,instead we have wankers that go to Tannadice even against the clubs wishes

[Mr Soprano 13,964]

Was article on it in FourFourTwo last month, good read.

[tannerall 25,935]

RST, RSA, SOS dislike this

[RD.1872 890]

Imagine there was someone in Scottish football like that Mamic guy, dictating everything and rewriting the rule book to benefit one team? Oh wait...

[One Jock Wallace 858]

My wife's Croatian and all her family back home in Zadar (where Dado's from) are big Hajduk fans. This has been building for years & many of them don't follow the national side as a result. Sound familiar?

[OlegKuznetsov 10,816]

My wife's Croatian and all her family back home in Zadar (where Dado's from) are big Hajduk fans. This has been building for years & many of them don't follow the national side as a result. Sound familiar?

Positively uncanny.