Partizan’s head coach, Zeljko Obradovic, spoke about the situation with Nikola Mirotic in a major interview he gave to Nedeljnik.
Despite Mirotic having already been seen in the black and white jersey, Zeljko Obradovic ultimately missed out on a significant reinforcement. The Montenegrin basketball player went to Milan, after a saga that marked the summer transfer window.
“I will tell you everything I know about it. After several conversations with Nikola that both the club management and I had, he called me and said he was definitely coming to Partizan. The paperwork between him and Barcelona was left to be sorted out, and that whole confusion.
However, we continued to communicate throughout that time. He is an extremely polite guy, and all those conversations were pleasant. Everything was going smoothly; we talked about the team-building process, the players we were bringing in, plans, he was interested in every detail,” Obradovic said.
Obradovic also explained how the turn of events occurred.
“After two weeks of such conversations, he called me and said he couldn’t come. When I asked him why, he told me it was because of pressure. I explained to him that we are all under pressure, that it’s part of the job, with insults, expectations, and threats, but nobody has suffered any consequences from that pressure, and he can handle it.
Then he told me that he had received several calls and was forced to withdraw. I will tell you exactly what Mirotic told me. He didn’t mention any names, but he told me that he received calls ‘from politics’ and ‘from the church.‘”
Obradovic then appealed to the fans not to use the mentioned situation as an excuse for creating incidents.
“He didn’t reveal any names, but he can confirm that it was people from politics and the church. Of course, it disturbed us that he didn’t come because for two weeks, we thought we had a done deal, and we were thinking about incorporating the next reinforcements.
When it fell through, we had to redirect ourselves. However, I want to emphasize that I don’t want to blame Nikola for anything. I felt the need to tell the Partizan fans everything that happened and to ask them to welcome all the players with applause and show them respect, thus proving their greatness. That is my sincere request,” Obradovic said.