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[CinnamonBoy]

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[skinnerchinner]

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[Hector Grey]

seeing as we're linking to stuff
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[old]

This Guardian lad's reports are always good...

How the Montenegrin title race got nasty

With politics, points penalties and fans threatening their own players, the new Montenegrin league has got off to an explosive start.

Jonathan Wilson


April 11, 2007 10:53 AM
These are heady times for Montenegrin football. Not only did they win the first international in their history three weeks ago, not only has their captain,

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, started scoring crucial goals for Roma, but the first title race in their history looks like being fittingly tight, tense and rancorous.
Buducnost and Zeta, it is fair to say, don't get on. They have the natural antipathy of the two biggest clubs in any country, with the added factor of being based just six miles apart. Buducnost play in the capital, Podgorica, while Zeta are from Golubovci, a small town - almost a suburb - just along the road to the coast, near the airport. At the moment, Golubovci is in the Podgorica municipality (population 170,000, of which 140,000 live in the city itself). Whether it should continue to be is a matter of some debate.
On one side is Miomir Mugosa, the chairman of the Buducnost Assembly - the body that runs the club - the mayor of Podgorica, and one of the founding members of the democratic Socialist Party (DPS). On the other is Vukasin Maras, a former Minister of Internal Affairs, a member of the presidential cabinet and a head of the security services, and the president of Sporting Association Zeta.
Maras was influential in the politics of the former Yugoslavia, and a close ally of Radojica Bozovic, a businessman and former member of the JSO, the special operations unit of the Serbian police that merged with Arkan's Tigers in 1996 and was finally disbanded in 2003 over the involvement of some of its members in the assassination of the Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. Bozovic took over Zeta, then newly promoted to the second division, in 1996 - coincidentally, the same year Arkan took over Obilic - and led them to promotion in 2000.
Maras wants Golubovci and the Zeta plain to form its own municipality; Mugosa sees his power as mayor being eroded and wants to stop them (you do wonder if the Balkans will ever stop Balkanising). Maras and Mugosa continue to deny any dispute in public, but

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, the president of the Montenegrin Football Federation (FSCG), revealed the nature of their argument earlier in the season. Great footballer he may have been; great diplomat he is not.
The first manifestation of the dispute, at least in a football context, came in March 2006, when Buducnost walked off the pitch with 11 minutes of their game against Zeta remaining in protest at an equaliser that they felt was offside - although there was some suggestion that it was some kind of ill-conceived protest related to the forthcoming referendum on Montenegrin secession. They were docked three points and relegated, but, given that they were quitting the Serbia-Montenegrin league for their own independent variant, it hardly mattered.
Horns were locked again at the first derby of this season, or rather they weren't, because when Buducnost turned up at the Stadion Tresnjica they found it empty and the gates padlocked. "It was," said Buducnost's sporting director Anto Drobnjak, "one of our easier away games this season." The FSGC awarded the game as a 3-0 win for Buducnost, and docked Zeta a point.
Bozovic subsequently claimed at a meeting of the FSCG's executive committee that he had locked the stadium because the people of Golubovci were sick of being constantly insulted by Buducnost fans.
Given the derby was scheduled a week before elections, he thought he was averting a potential flashpoint and had thus done a great thing both for the DPS and for Montenegro. He then added his usual complaints that Savicevic, as a former Buducnost player, was biased towards them and that he wanted Zeta to disappear from Montenegrin football. While the specifics were inventive, the general tenor was highly predictable.
Savicevic responded by convening an assembly, essentially as a vote of confidence. Bozovic did not attend, and was voted off the executive committee by a 37-5 vote. Bozovic then mysteriously vanished. Quite why remains unclear, but the rumour is that senior members of the DPS - on whose protection he relies - warned him to keep a lower profile.
All of which would have been intriguing enough heading into Sunday's derby, even without a series of extraordinary events last week. Last Tuesday, the hardcore of the Buducnost fans, the Varvari (Barbarians), angered by a run of two wins in six games since the winter break, invaded the club's training base and warned players that if they did not win their next two games they would send them to Igalo - a small town noted for its rehabilitation centre for those who have suffered serious injuries.
Buducnost promptly drew against the bottom side, Jedinstvo - and that thanks only to an 88th-minute equaliser - allowing Zeta to go top when they won 2-0 against Decic. Some Buducnost fans saw a correlation between the ease of the victory and the fact that Decic's coach is the brother of Dejan Vukicevic, the coach of Zeta, but there is no evidence of any wrongdoing. Whether fearing for his limbs or simply from a general sense of hopelessness, Buducnost's coach, Branislav Milacic, resigned, admitting he believed his chances of winning the title had gone. "The coach always pays for bad results," he said. "I think my resignation is the only solution."
It turned out to be a pretty effective one as his replacement, Bozo Vukovic, suddenly thrust into the spotlight for the biggest league game in Montenegrin history, led Buducnost to a 1-0 win. Milan Djurisic got the only goal, but Buducnost were emphatically the better side, as even Vukicevic acknowledged. "They deserved to win," he said, "but there are many tough games ahead."
Buducnost have returned to the top of the table, and lead by two points - how crucial Zeta's punishment could prove - but with nine games remaining you suspect there is still many a twist yet to come.