“Sports, and especially football, in which we have recorded great success, is a psychosocial compensation for Croatian society in some matters where Croatia shows that it is significant, that it has results, that it is known for itself and can escape from that reality in which our country makes so many mistakes, our society is divided, and the institutions do not produce competence and reputation. I admire each of our athletes whose success we claim as our own, which can be misleading considering all the failures that we ourselves have caused in the country and society,” he says in the Briefing prof. Ph.D. Viktor Gotovacprofessor at the Faculty of Law in Zagreb.
You can watch the entire Briefing show at the end of the text
“In the past, fan groups were marginal in a political, but also in a broader social sense. Today, however, fans have emerged as a politically powerful factor. They may not be the majority, but they are extremely important because they are loyal to the group, organized and create noise. The right has always seen this because sport, especially club sports, is a great place for divisions, to insult and name others, to show your superiority. The right builds its positions on these antagonisms. This is populism. The left is “It was too late to accept that symbolism and is trying hard to join that populism. Yesterday I saw that the mayor of Zagreb was talking about beer and things that I’m not sure he likes. Fan groups will never accept the left,” said Gotovac.
“For sure, there will be a welcome for football players regardless of their placement in the championship, because it will be a good opportunity for the state government to show that the athletes are theirs. Andrej Plenković won’t miss it. The real question is how the city government will react to this. It will be difficult for the mayor to move away from that, given that he promotes watching matches in the fan zone and drinking beer until 2 in the morning,” says Gotovac.
“Luka Modric I like him very much and I think he is an outstanding sports figure. I do not want to comment on one’s religious identity, but one can object to the aesthetic national kitsch or identification with Mark Perković Thompson because it is clear what the image of the Virgin Mary from Thompson’s concert on the cover of his mobile phone refers to. It’s much more interesting for me to see another football player, Davor Vugrinacwho is a great art connoisseur and collector. I would like Luka Modrić in some next phase of his life, which will come after football, to get to know beautiful paintings depicting religious motifs, to visit numerous churches in Croatia, because that would have an element of education and aesthetics, not just national kitsch. If I were Luka Modrić, I would never have that image because Thompson is a dwarf not only compared to Modrić but also to a large number of people. I mean the greatness of his political and social character. From the great Luka Modrić, just summoning Thompson is something incredible to me,” Gotovac points out.
“The government in Iran is significantly more thoughtful than the one in America, which carried out an illegal aggression against a country, but also against the global order and international law. Trump also politicizes the World Cup. The arrival of the Iranian national team in America is a brilliantly thought-out propaganda move by the Iranian government. Trump and Netanyahu they are driven by the lowest personal interests, not national ones. Iran consolidated internally and showed that powers cannot do in some parts of the world what they could do in Venezuela, and in this respect it has greatly damaged the position of America as a global leader, as well as Israel,” emphasizes Gotovac.
“For the health of this nation, the Croatian Olympic Committee should be dissolved as a matter of urgency. Politics is just waiting for it to calm down and for the HOO to become a sinecure for disused politicians again, where they will travel nicely, support the closeness of sports and politics, hand out free tickets, lunches, hotel rooms… I would abolish the HOO and dig hard for every trace that it ever existed, and then think with whom, how and when to build a new Olympism,” says Gotovac, adding that such elitism it does not benefit the sport at all, but a clique that has found space for self-promotion and great enrichment.
“Now a presidential candidate is running for the position of president of HOO. This was also talked about when the elections were held. In the meantime, he became the president of a sports association, which is a prerequisite for him to be elected president of HOO. The cards are quietly stacked,” says Gotovac.
“I hear that Mozemo! is for the separation of private and public healthcare. I have not heard that from the SDP. I believe that they will form a coalition. Will the president of the SDP give Mozemo! places on the election lists in order to get his support, in order to ensure that he will become prime minister? They will go together and have a chance to take over power. Not only because of the electoral system, but also because of the public’s perception, which does not see the current president of the SDP as a relevant candidate for the highest office in the executive branch, it seems to me that in the elections it could happen that HDZ does well because it has a very pragmatic president whom everyone will say is bad in the end, but it is less bad than the alternative in which they do not see political strength”, Gotovac assesses.
“The president of the SDP ranks much worse than his party in the polls, he is poorly placed on the list of the most positive politicians, but he is not even on the lists of the most negative politicians, which shows that people do not perceive him at all. The silent leader of the alternative to the HDZ, the president of the state, who has the greatest opposition force, has been silent for weeks. Siniša Hajdaš Dončić he is ready to sacrifice everything to be a candidate for prime minister. In the next elections, we can! will do much better, it will have more MPs. I am afraid that the SDP will not do well, but the SDP has been very successful in killing itself for a very long time. I think that the historical role of the SDP is melting and that for the development of the opposition to the HDZ, it would be good if the current actors disappeared from the scene as soon as possible”, concludes Gotovac.
You can watch the entire show in the video below or at YouTube channel Jutarnji list, playlist Briefing.
