Croatia has a valid Sport Act, and even though it’s been in power for months it was never implemented Now the government decided to ignore it and vote on a new, more “suitable” one.
The Sport Act, which has been in power since February but hasn’t been implemented yet, has been noticeably ignored by the new government and its Minister of Education, Science, and Sport. On May 6. 2016, Index hr is reporting the news about the matter.
Although Mr. Šustar claimed he has asked the Parliament for the opinion about the Act, it came out to be untrue, as no such request can be found in the Parliament records. The Minister has ignored reporters questions about this, and today it has been announced that the Government has asked the Ministry to write the new amendments to the Act.
This doesn’t exactly come as a surprise when we know that the Football Federation officials are predominantly recruited out of the ruling HDZ party, and the Act in question has quite a few Articles that would force the Federation to change the way officials are voted into their positions. It is still an issue how is it possible that we have a law which was broken for months, even if the changes are to be made in the future.
One more question is still unanswered -why is MOST keeping quiet on the matter? As HDZ’s coalition partner, MOST vowed to solve the problems in Croatian football, and MOST officials spoke about this issue many times during and right after the election. It brought them a significant number of votes in Dalmatia, region most interested in the case, as the changes were born in the Hajduk supporters community.
It is clear that the government is at the service of the Football Federation officials, and one has to wonder how is it possible for persons indicted for criminal activities to have such an influence on the politicians.