The leader of an umbrella union organization said that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s decision to decorate the Area Sport TV channel was scandalous.

“The fact that Aleksandar Vucic decorated Arena is just one more in a series of, at the very least, scandalous decisions by the president,” Sloga United Unions of Serbia President Zeljko Veselinovic told Belgrade daily Danas.

Arena Sport is part of the Supernova network of cable TV stations operated by the state-owned Telekom Serbia. Arena Sport was selected to broadcast the next six seasons of English Premier League matches that Telekom Serbia paid 600 million Euro for, drawing criticism from the political opposition in Serbia and broadcasters abroad.

“The 600 million Euro that Arena paid for Premier League TV rights are not their funds, those are Telekom funds, that is the funds of every citizen of Serbia. All that nonsense is intended to bring down the ratings of Sport Klub which I think is a better sports channel than Arena, with the goal of weakening SBB and strengthening Telekom,” Veselinovic said.

According to the union leader, the (United Group) N1 and Nova S cable stations are a huge problem for the Serbia authorites who, he said, “are plundering the state budget, grabbing money from the public, pushing Telekom into debts and paying ten times more than realistic value for a football league”. “And then to add icing to the cake, he decorates a sports channel. It would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. I believe that contract should be annulled after (the elections on) April 3 because this is a classic example of bribery and corruption using state funds,” Veselinovic said.