Sadly, the images were not new.
"I beg the fans not to do these things and let the opposing team play. This image will be released to the world and within a few days it will have spread throughout Europe. What will they say about us then?"
Zeljko Obradovic
complained .
The Partizan fans had taken the violence to the limit, that that third game in the Aleksandar Nikolic Hall of the Adriatic League final against Red Star had to be stopped by the referees.
A week later, the Belgrade team has taken an unprecedented step in its fight against hooligans: it will not play in the Serbian League playoffs.
"Our season is over," Partizan NIS announced yesterday resoundingly.
"Despite all the warnings from the two clubs, the five matches were full of incidents that endangered the safety of the players and coaches. Those incidents led to the partial and total closure of the pavilion, numerous fines and great embarrassment for the club. Serbian basketball in front of the whole world," the statement details.
The team to which the legendary Obradovic returned last summer ended up losing the ABA on Monday - thus giving Red Star a ticket to continue in the Euroleague - and the Serbian league presented itself as their last chance to win a title this season. of his rebirth.
Because they also failed in a Eurocup in which they started as favorites thanks to reinforcements such as
Kevin Punter, Zach Leday, Alen Smailagic or former Madrid player Tristan Vukcevic
.
"With this act, we want to send the message that the club does not want to be part of the hooligan parties, regardless of whether they are Red Star or Partizan fans. We have reasonable doubts that another final series between the two will become another field for the thugs who are destroying our sport, which will lead us to another terrible message sent to the world", reads the forceful note from Partizan.
During the ABA playoffs there were throwing of objects, firecrackers, flares and other acts of violence.
A chaos that caused that in the third, the referees decided to go to the locker room with 57 seconds to play and order the evacuation of part of the Partizan stands.
The match resumed 20 minutes later.
Despite not having achieved it through sports, Partizan, European champion with Obradovic himself in 1992 -that triple by Djordjevic against Joventut-, intends to return to the Euroleague and opt for one of the wild cards that will foreseeably leave vacancies of the Russian teams.
"Our wish is that Belgrade and Serbia have two representatives in the Euroleague. However, this type of behavior by a certain number of individuals and missed opportunities to punish them will not get us to where we want to be," admits the club, which will not face each other in semi-finals at FMP.
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