Croatian Football Federation – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Zoran Mamic (left) and Zdravko Mamic (right)
Photo: Ivica Tomic

Arresting someone on suspicion or charges of tax fraud and embezzlement is not an uncommon thing throughout the world, so the fact that it occurs in Croatia is really not as newsworthy as the government controlled large part of Croatian media makes it out to be. But very few countries could beat Croatia and the current government’s sensationalistic executions of arrest and search warrants at the time when they should actually be publishing what they are doing to prevent hordes of young people exiting Croatia in search of work elsewhere.

When the Croatian public learned on Friday 3 July that the state bureau for combating corruption (USKOK) had finalised its investigation into allegations of embezzlement, tax fraud and evasion against the “bosses” of the Croatian most successful soccer club “Dinamo – Zagreb” and that arrests were imminent, the implicated brothers – Zdravko Mamic, the chairman of Dinamo Zagreb, and his brother Zoran Mamic, the club’s coach – were in Slovenia attending the club’s training camp. The Mamic brothers wasted little time and returned to Croatia to face the authorities but as soon as they crossed the border in a car Croatian police arrested them and drove them to prison from where they are expected to face the court and apply for bail! It’s not as if they were on the run from Croatia! Their homes were searched also and the president of the Croatian Football Federation, HNS, Damir Vrbanovic, was also arrested and placed into one-month custody as a measure preventing any influence on possible witnesses.
Zdravko Mamic is suspected of taking undeclared commission fees from the sale of several Dinamo players to foreign clubs. He has denied his and his brother’s wrongdoing. Sales of Dinamo players of note include: Luka Modric (Tottenham Hotspur, Real Madrid), Zvonimir Boban (AC Milan), Robert Prosinecki (Real Madrid, Barcelona), Eduardo da Silva (Arsenal) and Alen Halilovic (Barcelona).
Zdravko Mamic, known for his ardent love of the Croatian nation and its independence, responded by saying that the criminal investigation represents “genocide” against him, his family, Dinamo and the Croatian state.
“…The whole world will find out about this and will see that the government which is the descendant of the Communist Party has not moved away from its methods, that is, political reckoning with those who think differently. Of course all this is an order from the very top of the government, from the Prime Minister down…It’s clear from all his public outbursts that concoctions of various affairs against people of right-wing political orientation are rife…”

Croatian TV news said Saturday 4 July that this case represents the largest amount of money that the anti-corruption bureau USKOK has so far investigated. Reportedly USKOK alleges that brothers Mamic have through corrupt dealings, embezzlement, scooped for their personal benefit the sum of 117.8 million Kuna (15.2 million Euro) from Dinamo football club and 11.2 million Kuna (1.5 million Euro) from the state budget i.e. tax. Mamic brothers have denied guilt to these charges and vow to prove their innocence.

Croatian media said that the Mamic brothers are accused by the USKOK bureau as having channeled the funds into their private accounts by taking undeclared commission fees from the sale of Dinamo players to foreign clubs and through “illegal” contracts with individual players.

Zdravko Mamic’s solicitor, Jadranka Slokovic, said that her client had laid out a very wide defence through which he denied all charges put against him. She stated that in her opinion this is a case of a “malicious procedure through which documents about transfers of football players are wrongly read and presented” and that “on the other hand, we are looking at a political procedure that has the elimination of Zdravko and Zoran Mamic as its goal.”

The former president of Croatia, Ivo Josipovic, commented that it would be hard to even think that the charges of corruption were an election tool (for the leftist Social Democrats), because that would mean that Croatia is a Stalinist society, and that’s not true – he said.

That indeed is yet to be seen when it comes to this particular case but sadly the due process for either guilt or innocence will not pass through the courts before the elections early 2016. So, in effect, the arrests at this particular time and the sensationalism created around them do smell of political fodder for the public; and that fodder will not benefit the conservative political parties but the ones Josipovic and current government subscribe to. In this year of 2015, arrests on suspicion of corruption and fraud should be a “normal” matter, a “days work” so to speak instead of being unleashed into the media as some sensation that lasts for days! Croatia has been and is riddled with corruption and these latest arrests with their media fanfare for the benefit of the ruling political parties do strongly suggest that it is still all about politics and not about stemming out corruption at every level. To me, whether “brothers Mamic” or some local government officials were found guilty of corruption (and there are multitudes of those) is one and the same thing – equally bad, equally unacceptable. But people of “brother Mamic” social calibre and standing are perfect for the creation of public hysteria, whether “positive” or “negative” – and either does leave noticeable imprint on “opinion polls” and eventually on election results. This really does remind one of manipulations akin to a “Stalinist state” for in a true democracy corruption is individualised and individuals if found guilty bear all the responsibility, not the people or the nation. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A.,M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Croatia: The Day The Pitch Swastika Attacked

Criminals burn a Swastika
Into soccer pitch in Split, Croatia

When in 2005 Prince Harry turned up at a party in London wearing a Swastika on his sleeve, the world media was intrigued and critical, however none associated Prince Harry or British Royal Family or, indeed, the British nation with Adolf Hitler and WWII Nazis, despite the fact that the British Royal family was “cosy” with Hitler back in the day, particularly via Duke and Duchess of Windsor/ King Edward VIII, Prince Harry’s great-great uncle who is said to have been a great Nazi sympathiser and also Princess Michael Of Kent’s father is said to have been a member of the Nazi Party. Furthermore, several weeks before Hitler’s Germany invaded Poland King George VI and his wife (Prince Harry’s great grandparents) sent Hitler a birthday greeting. The 2005 incident with Prince Harry and the Swastika was brought down to a “wardrobe malfunction” (!), the Palace issued an apology for the Prince’s mistake and that was that! Having been given, the acceptance of the apology was requested and “required”. No skin off the nose of anyone else in Britain then – not even of any extreme right wing political movements – or Britain in WWII and pre-WWII history and Hitler. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the apology that came out from the Croatia Football Federation even though it’s not even known that someone from within had burned a Swastika into the football field lawn – the world media and, indeed, the left-wing politics sympathising one in Croatia keep pounding and pounding against the whole nation because of an act of one or few!

12 June 2015, a faint image of what faintly appeared to look like the Swastika was discovered on the lawn of Poljud soccer ground in the city of Split, Croatia, during the game of the Croatia v. Italy Euro 2016 qualifier match on Friday. The Swastika sign imposed in/burned into the grass through a chemical agent before the kickoff became visible from the highest stands of the stadium (bird’s eye view) during the match even though the grounds maintenance did reportedly, albeit unsuccessfully, try to remove or conceal it.
Italians present in Split wasted no time to send the faint images of the Swastika to the world, reportedly complaining to UEFA. World media went berserk; almost every mainstream media outlet featured this Swastika image on its front page, thereby suggesting that Neo-Nazism is thriving in Croatia! What an awful, awful world we live in! What happened to: let’s wait and see who did this terrible thing. Let’s wait and see and who is responsible for this criminal offence and vandalism.

To me this act of vandalism (terrorism, more like it) was carefully designed and executed to have maximum political effect benefiting the hopelessly incompetent SDP (Social Democratic Party) and HNS (Croatian People’s Party) political parties – led by Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic and foreign minister Vesna Pusic respectively – that lead the hopelessly incompetent government that’s facing annihilation at coming elections. For it was not for nothing that Vesna Pusic, in obviously sinister motives, declared on Croatian TV news, Saturday 13 June, that “symbols of Nazism and fascism do not occur by chance in Croatia, that right-wing extremism which has entered the Croatian political scene has evidently, once again, opened the opportunities for such thinking …”! The possibility that the Swastika was the act of criminal activity and criminal provocation in order to punish the Croatian soccer team for whatever reason or the work of deranged individuals, did not it seems cross Pusic’s mind! How unfortunate is that!
With the world media going berserk and Croatian foreign minister shamefully adding Neo-Nazi twist to be applied to the whole of the nation, to the incident, no wonder this particular sorry image of the Swastika left Croatia players and the country’s soccer ruling body, the HNS (Croatian Football Federation), fearing drastic punishment from the UEFA after the result left them top of Group H with 14 points from six games, two ahead of Italy and four clear of Norway.
“This is a clear attack on football and we will without a doubt be severely punished,” HNS secretary-general Damir Vrbanovic told a news conference on Saturday. “We have all been slapped in the face by hooligans and it was not an accident, it was a calculated move. The cameras will identify the perpetrators, but the shame will stay,” he said.
Not only were there fears that the whole Croatian team and the football federation would be punished but that the entire Croatian nation will be dealt a heavy “slap in the face”! I find it disturbing to think that criminal acts of individuals can actually attract punishment for those who had nothing to do with those criminal acts.
For crying out loud: what happened to keeping an eye on justice and concentrating on the hooligan/s or political agitator/s who were responsible for this act of vandalism and/or crime?
Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic demands pitch Swastika culprits are found and said, “this act has inflicted immeasurable damage on the reputation of Croatian citizens and their homeland all over the world. Therefore, we must finally put a stop to such things”. “I condemn in the strongest possible terms the swastika on the pitch. I demand an urgent investigation and a decisive response from the relevant institutions to find and process the perpetrators,” Grabar-Kitarovic said in her statement on Saturday 13 June.
The Police in city of Split have confirmed that criminal charges would be laid against individual/s, currently unnamed, for this act. “Immeasurable damage to the Croatian football, to Split and to Croatia has been caused by this act of vandalism. I’m convinced that the police and the appropriate authorities will swiftly and effectively investigate all the relevant circumstances and find the culprit,” said the Mayor of Split, Ivo Baldazar.
Whoever turns out to be responsible for this horrible act should also be charged with terrorism. While it is obviously in someone’s interest to vilify and muddy the Croatian name, the innuendo from the media coverage and from this pitch Swastika itself have caused a great deal of pain and terror to just about everyone in Croatia and Croats living abroad. The Left wing political parties that control the current government have ensured that more salt is rubbed into the open wound by suggesting that political movements are exclusively to blame for this incident and that wretched pitch Swastika. Shame of the foreign minister Vesna Pusic and Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic for not standing behind the good name that Croatia is (and insisting that individuals responsible be found) as opposed to muddying it even more. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)