Wait, what's going on with Luka Modric? What's infuriating? Girl, what's the tea?!
Ahhh… it’s a lot to explain. Basically Croatian football is really corrupt and really broken. One of the most corrupt figures is this guy: Zdravko Mamic
Mamic was the director of Dinamo Zagreb for many years (and became an advisor to the club once he stepped down) and while he was in charge the league bent over backwards to make sure they always came out on top. He also created many shady transfer deals that put lots of money into his pocket. Croatian authorities have accused him and his brother of embezzling the equivalent of $17.3m of the club’s money since 2008 and not paying $1.8m in state taxes. Croatian media said they were suspected of taking undeclared commission fees from the sale of Dinamo players to foreign clubs.
As part of that investigation, Luka Modric’s transfer from Dinamo Zagreb to Tottenham came under question. It seems like Modric and Mamic pocketed money from the transfer that they shouldn’t have. When police questioned him, Modric turned on Mamic and told how corrupt and criminal he is.
Mamic is now having a trial for these and other criminal charges. Today, Luka Modric was called as a witness to testify. But rather than repeat the allegations he made to police he claimed suddenly to not remember anything. Not what his contract was, not what he originally told police, not what the annex to the contract was that detailed how the money would be split, etc etc. Basically nothing he said while on the stand was in line with what Modric previously said to the State Attorney and when the plaintiff presented parts of his earlier statement in which Luka said that Mamic had repeatedly promised him to receive a certain amount of transfers money Modric claimed he didn’t remember saying that, he must have misunderstood the question, he was tired, etc etc.
Mamic is a criminal and his house of cards was finally about to fall down until Modric suddenly contracted amnesia. He is one of the best Croatian footballers of all time, a hero to many in the country and today he chose to stand up for criminality and corruption.
It’s infuriating because Modric turned his back on helping to build a case against a figure most Croatians hate. And more than that, this whole thing is like a microcosm of the state of Croatian football. The head of the Croatian FA is Davor Suker and he is terrible. He favors certain teams and players, he attacks journalists and prevents them from doing their jobs reporting on the national team, he makes management decisions to fund his gambling habit rather than based on what would be best for the team, he openly admires Croatian ustase (fascist) leaders who committed acts of genocide during World War II, etc.
The national team is coached by Ante Cacic who used to manage Dinamo Zagreb and is good friends with Mamic. He lets Mamic have a lot of say in who plays for the national team and of course Mamic wants Zagreb players in so he can sell them and pocket more money. He chose for his assistant Josip Simunic who was suspended from the national team in 2013 for leading the crowd in ustase chants and giving ustase salutes (which is basically the equivalent of a German player leading the crowd in Nazi chants and giving the Nazi salute) and has also helped fund a documentary that essentially argues that the extent of the Holocaust in Croatia is greatly exaggerated.
Maybe you remember a few years ago Croatian fans made headlines for burning swastikas onto a field or during the Euros the fans threw flares onto the pitch during a match? Neither these or other similar instances are the fans expressing a fascist ideology or being stupid ultras; it’s a protest against the awful people in charge of Croatian football. It’s an attempt to embarrass Suker, Cacic, Simunic etc.
There is so much more I could say on this topic, but hopefully that explains at least a little bit what is going on with Modric and why this is all infuriating.
