Six days ago, Novi Beograd won the Regional League, beating Jadran Split in the final, and clinched the first trophy in the club’s history.
But, according to the news of the Serbian media, the days of celebration did not last long.
Serbian website “Sport Klub “ published an article about the players’ meeting with Aleksandar Sapic, the club’s founder and leader.
The website revealed that Sapic’s arrival at the meeting had turned into a 20-minute monologue with lots of accusations.
Sapic, the legendary water polo player, told Novi Beograd players that he had nothing to congratulate them because Radnicki achieved the same success with a weaker team last year. He told the members of the Serbian national team, including the winners of two Olympic gold medals, that if they had been eliminated in the quarterfinals of the Tokyo Olympics, they would have represented the weakest generation in history, Sport Klub reports.
He also criticised the players for being responsible for the departure of former coach Vladimir Vujasinovic and for hiding during his mayoral campaign (Sapic was the carrier of the electoral list of the Serbian Progressive Party in the Belgrade local elections).
Sport Klub underlines that it is an open secret that the players reluctantly agreed to participate in the video message in which Sapic talked about sports in Belgrade (in his pre-electoral campaign). The players did not want to interfere in politics.
Sapic said that whoever wanted to leave the club could go, the website reported.
The gathering was attended by almost all the management, who were left in shock. In the end, coach Igor Milanovic was left alone with the players, Sport Klub wrote.
After winning the Regional League, Novi Beograd will battle for two trophies in the following months- in the Serbian League and in the Champions League.
