Report: Croatia soccer body whips up fans with Nazi slogans
Songs glorifying Holocaust and slaughter of Serbs played before home matches, The Sun reports.
By Haaretz Service Tags: Israel newsThe Croatian Football Federation is behind a campaign aimed at whipping up its national team's fans before games by using fascist slogans, the British newspaper The Sun reported Tuesday.
Songs by popular rocker Marko Perkovic that glorify the Holocaust and the Croatian slaughter of Serbs are played at Croatia's home matches, the report said, adding that the songs are blasted at full volume to crank up intimidation levels inside Zagreb's 40,000 capacity Maksimir Stadium.
Perkovic is better known by his nickname Thompson - the machinegun he used in the Balkans war in the 1990s.
Football's world and European governing bodies FIFA and UEFA have repeatedly probed Croatia in the past over claims of fans' Nazi chants.
The report in The Sun, published ahead of Wednesday's World Cup qualifier between England and Croatia in London - at which around 8,000 Croatian fans are expected to be in attendance - said that Croatian soccer authorities have made no attempt to curb the fascist displays.
The paper said the tactic was most recently used to stir up the 30,000 fans who attended the team's home game against Belarus last Saturday.
However, the report added that Perkovic's songs were not played at a 2007 home match against Israel, won by Croatia, for fear it would cause offense.
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'...The purpose of their activity is to provoke Jewish outcry because of Jasenovac, which was, in fact, working camp where inmates would had been given pensions if only Croatian state survived at the time...' Once again, Haaretz involuntarily explores the line between satire and delusion. Does or doesn't the poster believe this? Only he knows for sure -- and even then, one gets into the cloudy nature of 'belief.' Does he really believe it, or does he merely assert it as a premise necessary to the conclusion he finds it imperative to reach?
What is true is as follows: Thompson is in fact a Serb and his public is such too. And those on stadiums ... Serbian provocations, too. And let me tell you why they do it: because they want to make obstacles to Croatia on EU path. They are haters, bad guys, you remember? Read NYT, for example, last decade. They certainly know where the catch is, they are NYT after all! The purpose of their activity is to provoke Jewish outcry because of Jasenovac, which was, in fact, working camp where inmates would had been given pensions if only Croatian state survived at the time. You Jews can delete Jasenovac from Jad Vashem, what you think about it is simply not true, it is communist propaganda. Nothing ever happened: just take a look at present exposition at the monumental complex there (why is it for anyway?). And who says that I'm false he will get what he deserved: I'll name him a revisionist, enemy of EU project, Serbian nationalist. Or something. Got it?
Another irrelevant and unsubstantiated tale about anti-semitism. Surely the game against Israel was the perfect time for such songs, but they were not played to avoid giving offence? Are Jews supposed to be complete idiots? If Croatia to play Israel, Nazi slogans would have been apparent well before any game. Has anyone working in the media (which does contain quite a few Jews!) ever heard Nazi slogans and songs being used?
Appears the source is not The Sun, but the coach of the team himself. ESPN already reported on this in June in an interview with the team's coach! CBS reported it a year ago. Now, what I would like to know is what is the true source of your vitriolic Antisemitism Dino? It becomes more and more rabid with each posting. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=soccer&id=3433901 http://www.cbssports.com/soccer/story/10861865
The Sun...??? Are you kidding me...??? Apart from that, Croatia has indeed still a (rather big) problem with "nationalism".... ....one doesn't have to be a football-fan in order to be aware of that.