Nebojsa Covic, the president of Crvena Zvezda, appeared on TV Prva and discussed various current topics within the club.
To begin with, Covic addressed the change of the coach as Ioannis Sfairopoulos replaced Dusko Ivanovic.
“We are not satisfied because we fell into a strange crisis that started with Zalgiris, which we won, but then we defeated ourselves. It continued with Virtus, which was offering itself, and then it continued with Partizan. In the first derby, we had two losses because we defeated Partizan, and then we defeated ourselves. And then we entered into the second loss,” said the head of the Crvena Zvezda.
![Zvezdan Mitrovic](https://basketballsphere.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Zvezdan-Mitrovic.jpg)
“We lost two games to Partizan, so what? Is the sun still shining, is it raining, is the weather the same? It’s not good that we are so passionate. You know, we need the fans when things are bad.
We don’t need them when we’re winning by 15 points, which is great. When we’re playing poorly, we don’t need booing. But let them whistle. Let everyone do their job. But I don’t think it’s their job to insult their own players, their coach, and the club,” emphasized Covic when commenting on the whistles from fans directed at Shabazz Napier.
Recently, a statement from Crvena Zvezda was released highlighting the unequal treatment concerning the use of the Stark Arena compared to Partizan.
“We have an additional problem now. Soon we won’t have the conditions for normal training, even though we’ve agreed on everything. We agreed that we would use 50% of the large hall in the Arena, and Partizan would use the other 50%, and that’s not in question. But we need to use the small hall for training, and we haven’t been able to enter it.
There are stories that Partizan has some contract, but Partizan terminated that contract on May 5th this year. We negotiated all summer based on this. We had the same discussions in 2018, with Grbovic and the Partizan president, that they would enter, and when we enter, we enter. Now they seem to have invented this through ticket sales, but we were the first to bring it up when we said we would take €100,000 for each game.“
“What’s the problem with Crvena Zvezda and Partizan sharing the Arena?”
“They (Partizan) have no contract; it was terminated. It was terminated due to warnings about debts. But what’s the problem with Crvena Zvezda and Partizan sharing the Arena, just like they shared Pionir? We need to provide normal conditions to Zvezda at the same prices.
Mr. Grbovic (director of the Arena) knows that they wanted to charge Zvezda nearly double the price compared to Partizan. When I found out about it and sat down with Mr. Grbovic, we resolved that. Zvezda must enter the small hall of the Arena,” concluded Nebojsa Covic.