Partizan withdraw from the Serbian League playoffs as a protest against violence / News - Basketnews.com

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Partizan NIS Belgrade will not suit up for the Serbian League playoffs, the club announced today.

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In view of the incidents that took place in the Adriatic League finals between Crvena Zvezda and Partizan, with Dejan Radonjic's team winning the title, the runners-up decided to withdraw from the competition as a protest against hooliganism and violence.

Partizan's management- with the consent of the coaching staff and players - will invite all participating teams and governing bodies to a meeting in order to take action against such incidents.

"BC Partizan NIS ended season 2021/22 and will not take place in Serbian League Playoffs. This decision was made by the club after everything what happened during the ABA League finals," the announcement reads.

"Despite all appeals coming from Crvena Zvezda and Partizan, all five games were full of incidents which jeopardized safety of the players and coaches. Those incidents led to partial and total closure of the gym, numerous fines, and great embarrassment of Serbian and Regional basketball in front of the whole world.

During the whole series, self-criticism from Partizan representatives was quite big. Both president Ostoja Mijailovic and head coach Zeljko Obradovic publicly criticized irresponsible individuals at the stands for their behavior. Unfortunately, critics were not fruitful."

Furthermore, Partizan explain that the reason behind this action is to "send the message that the club doesn’t want to be part of the hooligan feasts, no matter are they Crvena Zvezda or Partizan fans.

We have reasonable doubt that another final series between Partizan NIS and Crvena Zvezda MTS would become just another field for bullies who are destroying our sport which will lead us to another awful message sent to the world.

At the same time, the club wants to leave the floor for all relevant subjects to sit down and solve all this issues before the beginning of the next season."

Per the Serbian club, their desire is "that Belgrade and Serbia have two representatives in EuroLeague."

"However, this kind of behavior of certain number of individuals and missed opportunities to punish them will not take us where we want to be.

Our country showed that is capable to organize top sport events. Just recently organized Euroleague Final Four was a great example. We had full arena of Olympiacos fans followed by Crvena Zvezda fans, four clubs in total, many tourists in Belgrade and not a single incident."

Partizan promise "to do everything" they can to solve numerous problems in Serbian Basketball League, and "to get the League out from the position where some individuals have monopoly in making all important decisions.

Our idea is to return the league to the National Federation who would guarantee the equal conditions for all the clubs. Only equality is a good basis to reduce the tensions and turn everybody to the basketball."

In addition, the club makes clear that it does not intend to join any other leagues other than ABA League and EuroLeague-run competitions.

Following Game 5 of the ABA finals, Zeljko Obradovic congratulated Red Star for winning the title, without hiding his concern about the conditions under which the games were held.

Partizan head coach also questioned the team's future in the Serbian league.

"I do not know what to do. We will talk to the players, to the team and we will decide," he said when asked about the matter.

"What should we talk about? Basketball? The conditions?" Obradovic wondered.

"What happened has nothing to do with basketball and the Adriatic League must decide what they want to do."

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