By Stefan Djordjevic/info@eurohoops.net
It’s a very turbulent time at Partizan Belgrade right now.
While a necessary coaching change was made with Miroslav Nikolic being released and Nenad Canak replacing him, there are other, more serious issues to worry about. Unfortunately for the black and whites their biggest problem is their large debt which is estimated to be more than 7 million euros, as club president Ostoja Mijailovic revealed.
“We have the biggest problem with the Marfin bank. The contracts we were signing before were very bad for Partizan. For example, we had 18 thousand euros debt that is now 200 thousand because of the interests we have to pay. We owe exactly 7.186.150 euros at this moment, but the whole debt could be even more because of the taxes we have to pay“, Mijailovic said at a press conference held today in Belgrade.
The Partizan management tried to make some kind of arrangement with the Marfin bank, but didn’t succeed.
“We offered them to pay 400k euros in the name of the interest we owe to the bank. We wanted to pay 400k at this moment if the bank will write off the other 700k euros we owe because of the interests. They didn’t agree on that“.
Without naming someone in particular, Ostojic mentioned that previous presidents and boards are to blame for the current situation in the club.
“In our history, the club often did wrong business moves in order to have a strong squad. A lot of players and coaches made rich contracts because of the good performance in Partizan, but they left the club in debt. They now have a chance to show if they really love Partizan or they love money better. Some of the ex-players are willing to write off the salaries they earned. Some of them are willing to give up on 200k dollars. But, it’s very hard to work on it when our account is blocked by the bank. We have the 1.050.000 euros budget for this season and the highest paid player has 12k dollars salary. ”
The Partizan front office is well aware of their bad situation as they now depend on the goodwill of their former players and coaches. Their previous head coach, Miroslav Nikolic, had a three-and-half-year contract before he was fired. It’s possible that he’ll bring his case to the BAT and ask to be paid for the whole contract.
“Our ex-members have to realize that they have to be patient or they will not be paid at all. We paid 156k euros this season only to the bank in the name of the interest we owe. We still have to analyze our debt, to talk with our ex-players, to see what they expect. After that, we will see what will be with Partizan”, Partizan’s president concluded.