In other Croatian football news…
It’s safe to assume that booking a hotel in the Turkish city of Eskisehir where Croatia will face Turkey tonight is a routine task for five traveling journalists from Croatian national television (HRT). This becomes especially apparent given the fact that this particular group of journalists has followed the Croatian national team on their away performances time and time again, reports Hrvatska Reprezentacija on September 5, 2017.
However, at the reception of the prominent Hilton hotel where they had already booked and paid for their accommodation, the HRT journalists were served with the bad news that they must look for another hotel.
“When you arrive at the hotel after 12:00 and you realize that tea is the only thing you can get there, even though the accommodation was paid for on August 24th,” read the Facebook status of HRT journalist Marko Šivak yesterday.
Of course, none of this made sense to them at the time, and the group was forced to wait 90 minutes before they received an official statement about why they could not be accommodated at the hotel they had already paid for.
Šivak continued n his Facebook profile:
“We have already planned everything, and we will sleep on the lobby chairs. We are waiting for two things, (a) a written statement by the Hilton Garden Inn as to why they will not accommodate us and b) the general manager of the hotel to come and talk to us.”
The director, as expected, did confront the reporters, and as it turned out, this ban came from the top – and no less than from the Croatian Football Federation.
Specifically, HNS President Davor Šuker is not in favor of journalists staying in the same hotel as the national team during their away matches, and because of that, he ordered the crew of HRT to seek other accommodation.
In the end, HRT found their answer as to why they could not be accommodated in the hotel they booked 12 days ago, albeit just 20 hours before the start of the match.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Croatian football. At the very least, HNS always finds a way to keep things exciting.
Croatia will face Turkey tonight for the World Cup qualifying match at Eskisehir at 20:45.
Translated from Hrvatska Reprezentacija
