Since the end of the Second World War, Belgrade has been dominated by two “eternal” rivals,
with their stadiums separated by just a few hundred metres. Before then the city was ruled
by two very different Belgrade clubs.
SK Jugoslavija, who wore red shirts, and Beogradski Sports Klub, who wore blue.
Both clubs were dissolved at the end of the war at the behest of Josip Broz Tito's victorious
communist regime. So, the new Yugoslav league, covering what is now Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia,
Bosnia and Kosovo, had two new Serbian powers join its ranks.
Partizan, founded as the team of Tito's JNA, the Yugoslav People's Army, future winner
of 27 league titles, 16 cups, and runner up in 1966 European Cup final. And Crvena Zvezda
- Red Star -also founded in 1945 and a successor club to SK Jugoslavija, taking its colours
and even its stadium.
Red Star would go on to win 30 league titles, 24 cups and, famously, the European Cup in
1991.
Shortly after that 1991 final against Marseille in Bari, Yugoslavia collapsed, fracturing
its football league. Serbia and Montenegro, and then later just Serbia, went on alone.
Since 1992 only one club outside of Red Star and Partizan has won the league, when Obilic,
a tiny club from the well-to-do Belgrade suburb of Vracar clinched the title in 1998.
Although this wasn't quite the underdog story it sounds. Obilic's breakthrough title was
bankrolled by Željko Ražnatović, a vicious career gangster and indicted war criminal
known as Arkan, who intimidated and threatened anyone who stood in his club's pursuit of
glory.
But whatever happened to Belgrade's other big pre '45 club, the blue and white of BSK?
In the east of the city you will find the answers at the Omladinski stadion, home to
OFK Beograd. If history had taken a different course, it might have been OFK playing in
the Eternal Derby. Now, however, the club languishes in Serbia's third division.
But the story of how a century-old club is now on the brink of collapse thanks to mismanagement,
patronage and, finally, the aftermath of Covid-19, also serves as a warning to the rest of European
football about how the economics of football have fundamentally changed.
After the Second World War, with BSK disbanded, a new club called Metalac (Metal Workers)
was formed. Many BSK officials were involved in Metalac. Some of the same players. They
even played in the same blue kit. Only this time, they had Tito's portrait in the boardroom
as honorary president. It was BSK in all but name.
And soon enough, in 1950, that changed too.
Once the post war revolutionary fervour was over, the name was quietly changed back to
BSK before again changing in 1957, this time to Omladinski Footballski Klub.
Whilst Red Star and Partizan thrived, OFK became a perennial yo-yo club during the Yugoslav
years with brief forays in European competition at the start of the 21st century. Unable to
compete with the big two, or even Belgrade's fourth team, FK Rad, “The Romantics” exploited
what is one of Serbia's biggest resources: creating and then exporting its players.
Clubs like OFK, and countries like Serbia, are the bread basket of European football.
The entire financial ecosystem of Serbian football outside of the top two is based in
large part on moulding and then selling players.
Serbian football has a complicated organisational structure. Clubs are, in effect, mostly still
state funded, a hangover from communist times. Most are dependent on that government support,
especially in the form of sponsorship deals, and almost all of them have to sell to survive.
According to the 2019 CIES Football Observatory Migration Atlas, 521 players left Serbia to
play professional football in other countries, more than Germany. It is the sixth biggest
exporter of players in the world, with Brazil number one. But Serbia has a population of
just 7 million, Brazil 210 million. Per capita, only Argentina and France export more.
OFK's academy is one of the most admired in the Balkans. The two biggest successes in
recent years are current Serbia captain Aleksandar Kolarov and Serbia's all-time record caps
holder Branislav Ivanović.
But for the past three seasons they have been stuck in the third division unable to get
out. Former Yugoslav international, coach and club legend Ilija Petković – who took
charge of Serbia and Montenegro at the 2006 World Cup finals – was brought in to help
revive the club. This season they finished second and missed out on promotion again.
According to OFK director Vladimir Simovic, the club's annual budget of 200,000 euros
– to pay for the upkeep of its vast stadium and its academy – is now almost all made
up of player sales and UEFA's solidarity payments.
In 2001, in the aftermath of the Bosman ruling, UEFA introduced a solidarity contribution
which would take 5 per cent of any transfer fee and divide it up amongst the clubs that
played a role in developing that player between the age of 12 and 23.
This, according to Simovic, now makes up 75% of their revenue. A large hole in last season's
budget was only filled thanks to 75,000 euros that came from the sale of Serbia international
Duško Tošić when he moved from Turkish clubs Besiktas to Guangzhou R&F in China for
£5million. Tošić had spent four seasons at OFK between 2002 and 2006.
Such dividends could become rarer, though, with transfer volumes and fees set to plummet
in the post-Covid world. A report by KPMG in May forecast that with revenues taking
a hit across the board, up to £10 billion had been wiped off player values, with teams
in the top five leagues drastically cutting back their transfer budgets. That, in turn,
will have a trickle-down effect on the clubs lower down – and those like OFK, often living
on money one season to the next, will be the first to feel it.
“We are dancing on the edge,” said Simovic “Most of the [Serbian] clubs are on this
edge,”
He predicts that 30 percent of Serbian clubs will disappear in the next two years.
The Covid crisis hit just as Serbia's top two leagues were being expanded. Extra promotion
spots were made available in the third tier, but OFK couldn't prove they would be financially
viable to be considered for the level above. To make matters worse, Ilija Petković died
after contracting the coronavirus, after he went to hospital to be treated for a burst
ulcer.
It’s a harbinger of a bleak future. The post-Covid world could well spell disaster
for a 108-year-old club like OFK, but they are just one of many, with a story likely
to be repeated many times across Europe over the coming months.