Belgrade weekly says Vucic could solve hooligan problem

“The authorities have been acting as if they are facing a numerically superior and better armed enemy for years and we all know that within the hour and a half that a football match lasts, (President Aleksandar) Vucic could have solved the hooligan problem. Instead, the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) has turned them into a party Praetorian guard,” the weekly said on Thursday.

It added that the hooligans broke up demonstrations, torched embassies and sold drugs.

NIN recalled that in 2016, then Prime Minister Vucic said that the state does not have the strength to deal with hooligans because that requires a social consensus. “That sounded a little comical,” it said. “It would be no surprise if the state decided on guerrilla tactics against the numerically superior and better armed enemy,” it said and added that Vucic had other plans for the hooligans and created an unprecedented symbiosis of organized crime, hooligans and the authorities.

“When the state did not want to implement policy, that was done, with the approval of the authorities, by the hooligans from the bleachers… Violence, brutal murders, drugs, racketeering, percentages from the sales of players, intelligence games, the police, politics and the politicians who approved it all came from the bleachers. From the top ranks of the state downwards,” it said.

According to NIN, there was “a shamefully small number of indictments” and that was the first reliable sign that the state is behind it all.a