FK Partizan Task Force Group Vice-President Predrag MIjatovic staged another press-conference regarding club matters.
“First of all, I`d like to express my condolences to everyone regarding Novi Sad tragic event. I felt such situation in my life and there are no words of comfort there. I know they are watching us from above and keep us safe, that`s my way of looking at it.
We have double the amount of academy coaches compared to one Ajax, can you imagine that?! At the same time, we didn`t produce a player for ages. There will be changes in our senior team, there`ll be new signings and releases. Our scouting team consists of too many people. We want to fix things in our academy, to set healthy foundations and produce 4 or 5 players that we can sell to some big club later on.
Wages will be reduced, depending on the wage packages and we are moving in that direction. Any cutbacks are more than welcome and some people understand the situation, some of the coaches renounced of their wages for the benefit of the club. Players and coaches don`t have same security as other employees. I already started the process of player`s wages reduction but I don`t want to go into details about it. Some of them are contract protected so we have to make some sort of agreement. At the moment, I can`t do anything else but to ask players to understand me, to show me their good will. I meet people around corridors and it`s like we are in the emergency ward. Partizan is our patient and we have to save him. We will do and then we`ll move him down to recovery department followed by a hospital release.
When I was at Real Madrid, I also had to make tough decisions, I had to say to famous Galacticos it`s time for us to part, to look for fresh faces and we made a new ambience. I arrived there when club had a three-season title drought, it was chaotic. However hard I find it here at Partizan, it`s nothing compared to Madrid, only that there was money there. We parted with Ivica Iliev and I spoke to Ivica Kralj yesterday to inform him our cooperation ends and he accepted it in a great fashion. Kralj is a fair-play person but we have to move on.
I want is to start changing the mindset and perception of football. If we want to understand modern-day football game, someone needs to start this process and I realized it has to be me. I was a football player and I learned how you run a club later on, what are the priorities, and I realized two things really matter – players and fans. I`m sure I`ll make mistakes, as no one is perfect, but I`m ready for all kinds of suggestions and comments.
Now, I want people to get to know me in this role. I don`t like people who just try to do things, I like those who do their job. Our club lost a lot, we are nowhere and no one talks about us. When Spanish media announced I`m talking this job, they didn`t about current Partizan, they talked about Partizan from 1966 and I want them to remember us by what we do here. Partizan was producing players for ages and we were forced to sell them to top European leagues so they can become the backbone of strong continent sides. Unfortunately, this doesn`t happen lately, otherwise I wouldn`t be here. We stopped somewhere along the path and that`s no good. It`s a process and it takes time. Football is not the game we played when I was Partizan player, it`s the thing of the past. We need time, patience and unity with the fans. From 1,000 attendance we moved to 20,000 in no time.
I met with UEFA`s Ceferin and Lakovic, they are people from the region ready to understand and help us. But, since they represent European football, they cannot be biased. They are sympathetic and ready to point us into the right direction, which is good enough. Football is a social phenomenon today and we need to follow regulative. We want to change the mindset regarding views of football game, behaviour of players towards opponents and officials, behaviour of fans and ourselves as well. I`m here to point out some things are not supposed to happen in football”, said Predrag Mijatovic.
