Another busy week for Croatian athletes, although once again the officials took up a lot of media space.
There were quite a few of sport stories in the past week and on April 19, 2016, we bring you the review of what the media has covered.
Hajduk presented the first female president ever last week, news that swarmed the media, even though it should not have been the case. First of all, a woman to be named the president of a sport club should not be such a surprise in a modern country that Croatia is supposed to be, and Hajduk has always been an avant-garde club. Not to be forgotten, ms. Bošnjak is named the president for the transition period of just over forty days and has denied the ambition to prolong her stay in the club after that.
Davor Šuker has spoken to the Spanish media, which would not have been news at all, if only he was a regular guest in the Croatian media, as the president of the Croatian Football Federation should be. As he was talking mostly about his former club Real Madrid, and the European football in general, it seems that he is not worried about the events showing the demise of football in Croatia.
One of the problems is the evident lack of the authority of the National coach, Ante Čačić, who decided to suspend Dejan Lovren from the national team after his media outburst questioning coach’s decisions. All this would be the an event that would not concern anyone in particular if it was an exception. Ivica Olić voiced similar objections to the management of the national team, and there are a lot of rumors about the fact that Čačić has no control over the players, it is an affair that will be in the media headlines in the following weeks.
Dejan Lovren’s participation in Liverpool’s miracle win against Borussia Dortmund in the quarterfinals of the Europa League brought more attention to this matter, and he used it to send a hidden message to the football authorities in Croatia.
There were more problems in Croatian basketball too, as former national captain, Marko Popović has refused to come back to the national team selection for the Olympic qualification tournament, and the rumors appeared that one of the best players, Ante Tomić is considering to follow Popović’s footsteps.
As we are talking about the Olympics, we brought you the story about problems with the funding of the Croatian Olympic Committee, as the new government has not yet decided who will be the Deputy Minister for sport within the Ministry of the science, education, and sport. It is worth mentioning that the ruling parties in Croatia have promised to sort things out in pre-election time, but since their overtaking of the government, they had done nothing about the matter.
To end this review in a lighter and more happy mood, we bring you some success stories about Croatian athletes, the people to whom we would like to dedicate more space, only if the officials would get out of their way. Sailing duo Fantela and Marenić won the silver medal at the European Championship, confirming their excellent form in the Olympic year.
The Croatian Rugby Union has joined the initiative for raising awareness about domestic violence against women, a worthy cause to be followed by other federations. Although there are problems in Croatian Basketball Federation, the basketball league is proving to be interesting this season, and the A1 Croatian League is played twice a week, with a few surprise results in almost every round.
