Dear God, we cannot allow them to rob Hajduk, Tomislav Karamarko said in Trogir yesterday. Was it sincere, or was it just a spin?
FIFA has a new leadership as of February 28, 2016, and is trying to get back some respect lost due to bribery scandals shaking the organization in last years. It has suspended all the incriminated people including its own president, Sepp Blatter. Just to remind you, Blatter is not even incriminated yet, there is no official indictment, just accusations by other people involved, but for FIFA officials, it was enough to suspend him for 7 years period.
In Croatia, things are somewhat different. Some high CFF officials are prosecuted for misconducts including money laundering from football transfers, indictments are to be raised almost for certain, but mantra that is to be repeated by all involved is that politics is not to be mixed with sports, and presumption of innocence is mentioned more than few times, when requests for suspensions of the incriminated people are raised.
Regarding separation of sport and politics, it is a fact that most of sport officials in Croatia are members of HDZ, and being so, it is always interesting to hear HDZ president when talking about sport, as sport lovers know that this so called separation is just a platitude used conveniently by the politicians when it suits them.
Tomislav Karamarko, conveniently, yesterday spoke about the matter and while in Trogir he has stated for national media: “Dear God, we cannot allow them to rob Hajduk!” It was a reaction to Hajduk’s request for foreign referees raised yesterday.
It is to be mentioned that before the elections, ha had similar thoughts while visiting Dalmatia, and it is to conclude that Karamarko, and most of politicians are comfortable with the subject while in Dalmatia, region passionate about sport, and Hajduk particularly. When getting back to Zagreb, and being in a position to change the matter, it is usually back to “politics are not to be messing with sport” theory.
With things getting out of hands of CFF officials, especially with futsal clubs threating with a boycott of CFF, it will be interesting to see if Karamarko will leave Mamić and his helpers behind for some political gain, as he has tended to do with his closest associates in some other occasions in his political history.
