Sports journalist writing for the Index.hr news website, Dea Redzic, appeared on N1 television's morning show Novi Dan to comment on Wednesday's court verdict against Zdravko Mamic.
Following a year-long trial, Mamic and three co-defendants were found guilty, with him sentenced to six and a half years in prison for syphoning funds from the Dinamo Zagreb football club. Mamic himself left the country the day before the sentencing, and remains at large in Bosnia.
“It was expected that the defendants would be found guilty. It was expected that Zdravko Mamic would be where he is today at the time the verdict was to be announcement. The origin of all criminal acts that we heard about at the trial started a long time ago, ten years ago, when the citizen association (which Dinamo Zagreb was registered as) gained absolutist power to treat what is the city’s club as if it is a private company. The key thing here is what will happen next, not whether Mamic would return to Croatia or whether the verdict would be confirmed (following appeals),” Redzic said.
The four defendants were charged by the anti-corruption police Uskok with helping divert 116 million kuna (€15.7 million) from the club to Mamic’s private bank accounts, as well as for tax evasion, for not paying 12.2 million kuna (€1.6 million) in taxes. The verdict also ordered Mamic to pay back 52 million kuna (€7 million) of illegally gained funds.
“The most absurd thing about this is that Dinamo keep claiming that they had not been robbed, and that they stand together with Zdravko Mamic, which could be clearly seen at a news conference Mamic held earlier this week. The contentious thing here is not whether Mamic had the right to enforce obligations that came up from his deals with players. The controversial issue here is whether they did this using forged contracts. Dinamo board says nobody stole any money from them. So it turns out that Mamic will either pay back the money to the country that was fine with the state of things at Dinamo all along, or to the club which says Mamic had never robbed them in the first place,” Redzic told N1.
Redzic was asked to comment if the verdict would affect the Croatian Football Federation (CFF) and its officials, as Mamic was seen for years as the most powerful man in Croatian football, thought to control most appointments at the organisation.
“The real question is what and whom did Mamic leave at the CFF. That is the biggest disgrace – along with the stolen money, if proved that it had been stolen – of his entire life’s work. The CFF is in a state of complete anarchy and apathy, it’s a system that has been collapsing on itself from within for years,” Redzic said.
She also commented on national team stalwarts Luka Modric and Dejan Lovren, whose transfers from Dinamo were the reason for the guilty verdict. Modric had moved to Tottenham Hotspurs from the club in 2008, before joining Real Madrid in 2012. Lovren was transferred from Dinamo to the French powerhouse Olympique Lyonnais in 2010. Both are currently preparing with the rest of the national squad for the upcoming World Cup in Russia, scheduled to start later this month.
“This is the worst possible timing for them, right before an important tournament…Based on what I’ve seen in court, I think that they cannot just be treated as witnesses in this. I know Modric is sincere when he says he regrets taking part in some things, and I think these days are difficult for him,” Redzic added.
Both Modric and Lovren were called in to testify during the trial. In March, Modric was charged with perjury after he gave contradicting statements in his testimony in court and in a deposition to investigators about the dates that annexes to his contract with Dinamo regulating transfer fees had been signed.
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