• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

FACULTY OF SOCIAL STUDIES How the Dissolution of Yugoslavia Heated Up the Relations In Domestic Fotball Bachelor's Thesis MARKO ĐUREK Supervisor: prof. PhDr. Vít Hloušek, Ph.D. Department of International Relations and European Studies International Relations and European Politics Brno 2021 1 HOW THE DISSOLUTION OF YUGOSLAVIA HEATED UP THE RELATIONS IN DOMESTIC FOTBALL Bibliographic Record Author: Marko Đurek Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University Department of International Relations and Euro- pean Studies Title of Thesis: How the Dissolution of Yugoslavia Heated Up the Relations In Domestic Fotball Degree Programme: International Relations and European Politics Supervisor: Prof. PhDr. Vít Hloušek, Ph.D. Academic Year: 2021 Number of Pages: 612 Keywords: Yugoslavia, Football, Politics, Fans, Break-up, Ser- bia,Croatia, Nationalism 1 HOW THE DISSOLUTION OF YUGOSLAVIA HEATED UP THE RELATIONS IN DOMESTIC FOTBALL Abstract The bachelor thesis will analyse intersections between football clubs and fans with the politics in the context of late period of Yugoslavia. With the death of Josip Broz Tito, growth of nationalistic tensions and the rise of nationalism among the ethnic groups led to the bloody breakup of the country. Nowhere did this rapid growth of nationalism show itself in the late '80s as it was reflected on the football pitch and terraces across the Yugoslavia. The bachelor thesis will mention all six former Yugoslav countries and events across those countries, however the main focus will be on the three most affected countries during those conflicts – i.e. Ser- bia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. This bachelor thesis will be in the format of research question, which will consequently lead towards having many other questions, such as – why did it happen? What was the main cause? What the consequences were and so on. The list of sources that are going to be used will be mainly from primary sources such as journals and documentaries from the period of happenings, as well as from the secondary sources – i.e. books, academic literature, journals, ar- ticles etc. 2 HOW THE DISSOLUTION OF YUGOSLAVIA HEATED UP THE RELATIONS IN DOMESTIC FOTBALL Statutory Declaration I hereby declare that I have written the submitted [select type of docu- ment] concerning the topic of How the Dissolution of Yugoslavia He- ated Up the Relations In Domestic Fotball independently. All the sources used for the purpose of finishing this thesis have been adequately referenced and are listed in the Bibliography. In Brno 16 April, 2021 ....................................... Marko Đurek 1 HOW THE DISSOLUTION OF YUGOSLAVIA HEATED UP THE RELATIONS IN DOMESTIC FOTBALL Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor prof. PhDr. Vit Hloušek, Ph.D. for his support and fast responses and feedbacks, as well as for giving me ideas about the thesis. In addition, I would like to thank my family and my fri- ends for their support and understanding during the process of writing this thesis. TABLE OF CONTENTS 5 Table of Contents List of Images 7 List of Tables 8 List of Terms and Acronyms 9 1 Introduction 11 11 Literature Review 11 1.2 Methodology 15 2 Politics in Yugoslavian Footballl 18 2.1 Post Tito Years 20 2.2 Structure of Yugoslavian Football League 23 2.3 Rise of Nationalism in Football - How did it happen? 27 3 Dinamo Zagreb vs Red Star Belgrade 32 3.1 A game that changed everything 35 3.2 Aftermaths 39 4 Conclusion 45 Bibliography 49 Index 5 LIST OF IMAGES 7 List of Images 1.1 Image: Hajduk – Crvena Zvezda. The scene when they found out about Tito’s death 1.2 Image: The famous scene when Zvonimir Boban kicks a police officer 7 8 LIST OF TABLES List of Tables 8 LIST OF TERMS AND ACRONYMS 9 List of Terms and Acronyms Ex-Yu – Ex/former Yugoslavia CZV – Crvena Zvezda (Red Star Belgrade) LCY – League of Communists of Yugoslavia SFRJ – Socijalistička Federativna Republika Jugoslavija/Socialist Federa Republic of Yugoslavia FSJ – Fudbalski Savez Jugoslavije/Football Association of Yugoslavia BBB – Bad Blue Boys HDZ – Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica (Croatian De- mocratic Union) 9 1 Introduction Ever since football was invented as a game, it was always people's game. A game created by the working-class people for working-class. As the time progressed and as it became more and more popular, politics saw its chance to intervene into the ‘’people’s game’’. Nowadays football and politics goes along with each other, not just football but sport and politics in general are connected nowadays. The case of politics and football in Yugoslavia it is not the only one but cer- tainly it is one of the more specific cases. One of the very good examples when politics intervened into football is the so called ‘’Football War’’ – war between El Salvador and Honduras in the 1969. However, the ‘’Foot- ball War’’ was an Inter State war while the Yugoslavian case wan an Intra State conflict between Ex-Yugoslavian countries. What is going to be analyzed and explained in this thesis is how pol- itics intervened into the football and how it led to rise of nationalistic tensions within the countries and among the people. The conclusion will answer relevant research questions while sum- marizing the most significant findings of this thesis. 1.1 Literature Review Football in the 1980s and 90s in Yugoslavia became a hot topic in the worldwide news mostly because of the political reasons, hence it caught the attention of the broader academic researchers and writers, which led to increased number of academic work and papers dealing with the football and political topic. 11 INTRODUCTION Many authors explains the rise of nationalism in the 1980s. Ramet (2002) argues that after the Tito’s death Yugoslavia abandoned their stable formula while it was affected by the economic crisis and the political situation throughout the country. Meier (1999) builds on the work of Ramet by supporting the claims and highlighting the active role of Milošević and Tudjman as the emerging nationalist leaders. Their nationalist views and beliefs were the reason that brought them at the top of the hierarchy, as well as controlling the media and majority in the parliament. Meier adds that the media in Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia contributed largely to the breakup and interethnic conflicts in Yugoslavia by spreading the hatred speech. Political situations in Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia during the last years of the 80s eventually led that Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence. Political situation in ex-Yugoslavian countries reflected heavily on the football pitch, which was elaborated in the work of Mills (2018) and Armstrong (1999). Both of the authors supports the claim that violence among the fans existed even before Tito’s death. Fans or hooligans (in this case) looked up to the English fans or Italian ‘’Tifosi’’ fans because of their style of cheering. In addition, they were the ones causing big troubles during the football matches. Hence, as Mills explains, this was passed on to the Balkan fans influencing them to do the same. However, with the happenings within the country, politics entered into the football clubs and among the fans, which led to high-level nationalization and bigger outbreak at the stadiums. Richard Mills also acknowledge that not just the deteriorating poli- tical situation in the country was bad itself, he also points out that the 12 economic situation in the 1980s led to corruption within the football clubs – such as, political figures who bribed the referees, as well as the clubs who bribed the league officials at the top of the hierarchy. Ćolović (2004) seems to agree with the lines mentioned above, adding that collapse of Ex-YU and rise of nationalism led to accusing the sports officials and players as nationalist. Those claims were transferred on the terraces where fight amongs the football hooligans occured, which eventually became a commonplace (fights between Partizan and Hajduk Split fans or Red Star Belgrade and Dinamo Zagreb fans). Another trend in the Ex-YU football in the 1980s and 90s, where Ćolović argue is that (as he explains) – '' The exclusion of Yugoslav teams and clubs from international competitions was also interpreted with reference to the international isolation of the Serbian regime as described by the state media. According to their interpretation, Milošević’s Yugoslavia was exposed to international isolation and was under economic embargo and other United Nations sanctions’’. Breakup of Yugoslavia did not just affect the internal relations; it also affected country on the foreign policy level. Let us turn to literature on the two selected clubs and their specific game of our analysis now. The breaking ground point in the research trends of Ex-Yu football was the game between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade that took place in Zagreb on the 13th of May in 1990. Foer (2005) supports the claim that game was pivotal in many ways. Wilson (2006) agree with the research of Foer, adding that Red Star Belgrade was always a club of poor and disaffected, a club who had anti-Titoist and anti-federalist views. Their fans insisted on independence from any political body. Wilson explains that the game against Dinamo Zagreb and its fans Bad Blue Boys (BBB) was the war’s first battle than the actual war itself. 13 INTRODUCTION Foer builds with another argument explaining that the game played a role in revival of Serbian nationalism where the fans were led by the famous and notorious Željko Ražnatović ‘’Arkan’’where he recalled that ‘’Maksimir game was a seminal moment in his realisation that war was approaching’’. Authors Schlichte (2010), Foer (2005) and Mills (2018) supports the claim and stated that Arkan used the game against Dinamo as sort of a training for his paramilitary unit ‘’Arkan’s Tigers’’ that acted during the 1990s in the civil war.

Load more

  61

Copy Link