Search: ' FK Rad Belgrade'

One Belgrade club has floundered since the assassination of their infamous and highly feared owner in 2000. Richard Mills reports

Earlier this year Serbian pop singer Svetlana “Ceca” Ražnatović was finally charged with embezzlement over the sale of footballers and the illegal possession of firearms. These charges date back nearly ten years and relate to transfers from Obilić Belgrade Football Club. Ceca took over the running of Obilić when her husband Željko “Arkan” Ražnatović was assassinated in 2000 after an extraordinary life which included bank robberies, prison breaks, commanding a paramilitary organisation and indictment for war crimes. In death Arkan continues to be a legendary figure among Serbian nationalists, but the plight of his football club has been less well documented.

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Jonathan Wilson reports on the region of Serbia that may have produced a golden generation

Serbian football ought to be downtrodden. There is no new money there to purchase a fleet of promising Brazilians, corruption and crowd violence are rife, and attendances are falling. And yet, despite it all, there is genuine hope, and it lies in an extraordinary generation of youth players.

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The league that produced the European champions in its final season. By Jonathan Wilson

The long-term significance
Given the political situation, 1990-91 is remarkable for having passed off so smoothly. The previous season had been overshadowed by the riot at the Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb between Dinamo’s Bad Blue Boys and Red Star Belgrade’s Delije, hooligan firms that would end up serving at the front and who later saw that clash as the first battle of the Yugoslavian Civil War. However, although political violence flared across the region, crowd trouble remained relatively low-key.
It was, though, the last season of a truly pan-Yugoslav league. The Croatian clubs – Dinamo Zagreb, Hajduk Split, Osijek and Rijeka, as well as NK Zagreb, who would have been promoted – withdrew to join the league of the newly independent Croatia, while Olimpija Ljubljana, Slovenia’s only top-flight representatives, also withdrew. No sides were relegated, with OFK Belgrade (third), Sutjeska Niksic (fourth) and Pelister Bitola (sixth) joining second-placed Vardar Skopje in being promoted from the second division. The season also saw the continuation of the experiment whereby drawn games went to a penalty shootout, with only the winners taking a point, something that was widely seen as having helped Crvena Zvezda – Red Star – in Europe.

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Seven seasons with seven different champions has made for an exciting domestic scene but European impotence, reports Marcus Christenson

Djurgaarden fans could be forgiven for celebrating as if there were no tomorrow after their team won their first league title in 36 years, before beating Stockholm rivals AIK with an extra-time winner in the cup final to complete the double.

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The demise of the Cup-Winners Cup means there are some European ties destined never to be repeated and Bangor City v Napoli is one of them. A shame, since the first meeting was very close. Cris Freddi looks back

This was the first European match played by either side, but no prizes for realising the comparisons end there. One of the big names of Serie A against ­some­thing from the Cheshire League emerging blinking into the light. The two Argentinian forwards, Rosa and Tacchi, had cost more than Bangor’s entire income since the war. One team looked set for 90 minutes with their backs to the wall.

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