UEFA treats to Partizan. Today at 10:00 CET they will decided what will be about Partizan. Probbably they will punish us not to play in European games anymore. Because of that, Partizan fans reply:
Putting Mostar into perspective – The Partizan fans view
The responsibility for the crowd trouble at the Zrinjski-Partizan game falls directly into the lap of the organiser (Zrinjski) the security/police that were in place that night and the home fans. Serious lapses in organisation eventually led to the disturbances, but unfortunately the vast portion of blame has been assigned to the Partizan supporters.
More than a thousand Partizan fans made their way to Mostar to support the team they love and the first sign of trouble was at least 5 hours before the game kicked off. The local police forces held all the buses with Partizan fans for 3 hours in 40C for no apparent or valid reason. The policeman in charge also demanded all Serbian flags to be removed and placed in a box they provided. Since when is carrying a national flag against UEFA regulations? One bus full of fans refused and as a result, the policemen smashed the back window of the bus.
After these unfortunate incidents, the Partizan fans finally made it to the stadium where more trouble awaited. The entrance, which was the size of a normal door, was unexplainable shut with hundreds of Partizan fans, with valid tickets, still standing outside. With temperatures in the high 30C’s, tempers were obviously flaring. To make matters worse, the whole time the Partizan fans were trying to enter the stand, the stadiums chief of security (While wearing a Zrinjski scarf) was verbally insulting these same fans. The organisers should have provided an adequate entrance and employed an impartial security head.
Worse was to come. While waiting in line and finally getting into the stadium, the Partizan fans had to endure the hostility of a several thousand home fans. The repertoire of chants from the Zrinjski supporters (for the whole evening) ranged from “Ubi, ubi, ubi srbina” (In translation; kill, kill, kill the Serbian), “Srbe na vrbe” (In translation; hang all Serbs) and “Svi u Jasenovac” (In translation; all of you to Jasenovac). These were provocative, highly insulting and offensive songs, directly aimed at the Partizan players, the travelling fans and the entire Serbian nation! The organisers made no attempts to stop or even discourage the home crowd from such reviling behaviour.
At the same time, as the Partizan fans attempted to sing the national anthem of Serbia, the response of the police forces was to pepper spray them!
After such a demeaning and hateful reception from the Zrinjski staff and home crowd, the Partizan fans found themselves separated from the home crowd by only a thin metal fence – with no “buffer” zone on either side of the fence separating the fans. For such a high-risk game, simply placing a metal fence between two sets of fans was not enough. This serious lapse in the organisation directly led to the disturbances that stopped the match for 10 minutes. Being so close, Zrinjski supporters not being satisfied with only insulting the Partizan fans by singing highly offensive songs, started throwing rocks at the away fans. It was the home crowd that initiated the trouble and not the Partizan fans!
Eventually, as witnessed by the people at the stadium and thousands of tv viewers, emotions boiled over and the game was stopped for 10 minutes.
The rest of the game past off relatively quietly (Considering the prior events), but the culmination of the injustice the Partizan fans had to endure happened after the final whistle. Raging policemen baton-charged the Partizan end while throwing stun grenades and tear gas, wildly hitting anything that moved, firing rubber bullets into the crowd, pepper spraying everyone in the path while simultaneously pushing the crowd towards a closed entrance which meant that people had to jump over a fence to get away. This ultimately resulted in many injuries the worst of which was one fan being admitted into hospital with two bullet wounds and two fans loosing their fingers.
Many are horrified by the events, many are grateful to be alive, many are thankful that the wounds they received in Mostar were from flying rocks and nothing else, but many are also disturbed to hear that all the blame is being pinned on them. This was a very unfortunate incident and the Partizan fans did react but the blame solely lies at feet of the organiser, the police forces and the home fans that provoked such a reaction.
