ISSN: 2560-1601

Vol. 19, No. 3 (MK)

June 2019

North Macedonia social briefing: The Success Story of the Handball Club “Vardar” Against All Odds Anastas Vangeli

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+36 1 5858 690 Kiadó: Kína-KKE Intézet Nonprofit Kft. [email protected] Szerkesztésért felelős személy: Chen Xin

Kiadásért felelős személy: Huang Ping china-cee.eu 2017/01

The Success Story of the Handball Club “Vardar” Against All Odds

Introduction

Handball is perhaps the most popular team sport in North Macedonia (hereinafter Macedonia), or at least the one in which Macedonia has noted the highest number of (and the most meaningful) international successes. The national handball teams (both the female and the male ones) have generally performed well in international competitions, although they have not won a gold medal yet. However, Macedonian professional handball clubs have competed and won at the top level in the past two decades. The early successes were noted by female teams. In 2002, the female handball club Kometal Gjorche Petrov won the European Champions League (it also made the finals in 2000 and 2005), bringing about one of the rare moments of collective nation-wide celebration in what has otherwise been a dark period for Macedonia's society. After years of continuous improvement, male handball clubs also improved their performance. In 2017, the male handball team Vardar won the European Champions League, which has given way for one of the largest celebrations in Macedonia's modern history. Vardar played in the Final Four in 2018, but did not win a medal – while the fans of the team at home remained passionate and supportive. In 2019, Vardar had been shaken by a number of controversies and having fallen in financial troubles, and as a result, was considered to have no chances to return to the elite of European handball. However, despite the adversity and its underdog status, the team managed to advance in the Final Four, and then to advance to the Finals, ultimately winning the European Championship title once again on June 2, 2019, leading to another round of mass celebrations in Macedonia. In 2019, the celebration of Vardar's trophy, has nevertheless been much more politically charged – in addition to the complicated ownership and financial sustainability issues, the celebrations also had an important identitarian component. As most of the Vardar supporters are ethnic Macedonians who oppose the Prespa Agreement and oppose the new name of the country, they have used the celebrations to voice their anger towards the act of renaming. The unlikely success of Vardar and the developments in the aftermath have thus opened important questions that were central to Macedonia's public debate in June 2019.

1

Vardar's Troubles in Context

The handball club Vardar is owned/sponsored by the Russian tycoon Sergey Samsonenko. Samsonenko, who had invested in many other assets in Macedonia (including the football club Vardar as well), was believed to be in close relations with the former VMRO- DPMNE government, and once SDSM took power in 2017, media started to report on the difficulties of his business operations in the country and his imminent departure (and withdrawal from the sports clubs). The difficulties for Vardar allegedly exacerbated in 2018- 2019. Insiders have claimed that the state, the City of Skopje, and local businesses have withdrawn their support for the club, which has significantly weakened its position. There were a reports that the handball players of Vardar have played for months without pay, and that the club may go bankrupt by the end of the 2019 season, and will not be able to retain its players. The assumption among many was that these difficulties will completely derail Vardar's performance in the 2019 European Handball Champions League; this belief was so widespread that even the national broadcaster, the Macedonian Radio and Television, did not buy the rights to broadcast the matches from the Champions League to the Macedonian audience, assuming that Vardar will not advance beyond the group stage, let alone have a deep run and eventually win the European title (the broadcaster was severely criticized for this division and attracted the anger of the public when they were forced to watch Vardar's performance in the Final Four, and then in the Finals on cable television).

The success of Vardar amid such existential threats made its story even more significant. Supporters of Vardar deemed the victory in the European Champions League Finals as greater than a sports event, but in some way a victory of the common people against the system and the corrupt elites. This narrative was amplified by some of the statements of Vardar's players after the win, who positioned themselves and the club as struggling against the pressures by the system.

At the same time, their victory led to a rapprochement between the club and the current government in the country. Prime Minister Zoran Zaev welcomed the team, and pledged 500.000 EUR of state funding. Additional funding was pledged by the National Agency for Sports, and by the City of Skopje. The City of Skopje sponsored the early flight for the players to return to Macedonia, and organized a public celebration on the main square in the city. After the victory in the Finals, Samsonenko once again complained that he operates in an adverse environment, but at the same time promised that he will stay with the club and work towards a third European title. He also made sure to try to mend fences with the political elite one more time; he symbolically gifted Prime Minister Zaev a Vardar jersey.

2

Vardar Fans and Nationalism

By far the most significant aspect of Vardar's emergence as a European champion was the way in which the occasion was used to send a political message. Of course, the team and the players are only part of why their victory has quite easily been only one part of the story. The other part is the broader social context out of which Vardar has emerged. Most of the supporters of Vardar are ethnic Macedonians. As one of the oldest, the largest and most successful sports franchise in Macedonia (in addition to the handball team, there is a famous football team Vardar, and a less famous basketball one), Vardar has been considered a particularly important symbol for ethnic Macedonians, called “national pride,” a “crown jewel” and “lifelong love.” The organized group of fans (commonly termed as ultras) supporting Vardar's teams, Komiti, are Macedonia's largest ultras group. They have been historically associated with ethnic identitarian discourse (and sometimes even hate speech), which is common for most of the ultras groups in the country (including ethnic Albanian ones) and in many parts of the world (which is why international sports bodies have been investing in combating racism and chauvinism). Nevertheless, due to the particularities of the Macedonian context, the Vardar ultras have emerged as a particular form of social actor as well, exercising some political leverage (i.e. they have joint protests, social movements, and some of them are believed to be directly working with/for political elites). This has been also not unique to Macedonia, as ultras groups have been linked with politics across all of the countries of former Yugoslavia and beyond.

As an organization that has a particular role for ethnic Macedonian identity politics, Vardar has been also taken as a symbol of the struggle of a number of ethnic Macedonians against the Prespa Agreement and the change of the name of the country. To a certain extent, this has been due to the fact that the few Macedonians on the team, and in particular the team captain Stojanche Stoilov, have been vocal opponents of the Agreement and the renaming of the country. However, it was the organized fans, and the mass celebrations after Vardar won the European title, that have amplified the message and made a real impact on the public debate.

The Komiti group has been the loudest and most noticeable during the celebrations of the title in Skopje. They have performed their usual repertoire of songs whose content revolves around the tropes of national pride, historical injustice, and pursuit of greatness. However, given the political context in the country in the aftermath of the Prespa Agreement, one of the main chants has now been “Never North, Always Macedonia.” Nevertheless, it was not only the Komiti group that chanted “Never North.” From the audiovisual materials of the celebration, it was visible that tens of thousands of people had joined the chant. This was done despite the fact

3 that the celebration was organized by the mayor of Skopje, who comes from the ranks of SDSM and has been a strong supporter of the Prespa Agreement and the renaming of the country. In fact, the anti-North chants were so strong, that the mayor decided not to get on the stage and address the audience.

The association of the victory of Vardar with ethnic Macedonian identity politics was also present in the discourse on social media. Some of the often used tropes were that amid the treason of the political elites, the Vardar players – despite most of them being foreigners – have become the true Macedonian heroes. Their victory was interpreted as a testament to the strong spirit of Macedonia, that cannot be defeated. The fact that the victory took place despite the financial and other difficulties described above, reinforced this narrative.

In a broader sense, the Vardar celebration was thus a particular moment when the mass discontent among ethnic Macedonians had its public manifestation. The people at the main square in Skopje were just a fraction of those that have not only opposed, but also found themselves deeply hurt by the recent political developments brought by the renaming of the country. The “Never North” chants were very telling of the ever deeper divisions among the population, but also about the mobilization capacity that lies in the anger and the opposition of the name change of the country, and the possible rise of a new ethnic Macedonian identitarian discourse. Of course, the team and players of Vardar have had limited role in that – while they have not distanced themselves from the rhetoric of the celebration, they had “made peace” with the SDSM-led institutions in the days after – by meeting with Prime Minister Zaev, the Skopje mayor Shilegov, and accepting the financial rewards offered by them. Nevertheless, Vardar's second European title in three years has cemented the club as a symbol of Macedonian national greatness and gave new impetus to ethnic identitarian discourses in times of ever deeper divisions.

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