Calls for Red Star Belgrade to Be Banned from All European Competitions

The Srebrenica Memorial Center says Red Star crossed a line after messages glorifying Ratko Mladić appeared not only in the stands but also on the club’s official social media channels

Állítsd be a Google‑t, hogy a BALK mindig kéznél legyen!

The Srebrenica Memorial Center has formally asked UEFA to permanently exclude Red Star Belgrade from European competitions after supporters glorified Mladić during the club’s match against Viktoria Plzeň and images showing the controversial banner subsequently appeared on Red Star’s official social media channels.

The Srebrenica Memorial Center (Memorijalni centar Srebrenica) is not asking for another fine or a match behind closed doors. It wants the Serbian club permanently excluded from UEFA competitions.

It considers particularly serious the fact that Red Star itself published photographs after the match on its official social media accounts in which the message honouring Mladić was clearly visible.

The match was played in the Czech Republic on August 27, the same day that Ratko Mladić, the former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army, died in The Hague. Mladić had been serving a life sentence after being finally convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

“General, eternal glory and gratitude”

During the match in Plzeň, Red Star supporters chanted Mladić’s name and displayed a banner reading: “Generale, večna slava i hvala” – “General, eternal glory and gratitude.”

According to the Srebrenica Memorial Center, however, the significance of the incident lies in the fact that it did not end in the stands.

After the game, Red Star’s official social media accounts published photographs in which the banner was plainly visible. The Memorial Center argues that by doing so, the club failed to distance itself from the supporters’ message and instead incorporated it into its own public communications.

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One of the central arguments in the complaint is that a club which knowingly uses its official communication channels to distribute messages glorifying a person finally convicted of genocide cannot simply attribute the matter to fan behaviour.

As of Saturday morning, the photograph was still visible on Red Star’s profile, where it had received around 33,000 likes and approximately 3,500 comments.

The Memorial Center therefore argues that the issue is no longer merely one of misconduct in the stands. It also concerns Red Star’s conduct as an institution and its relationship with the principles on which UEFA claims European football is built.

It should also not be overlooked that Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is himself a Red Star supporter. Red Star, like several other Serbian clubs, receives substantial state support. Critics therefore argue that the relationship between football, nationalism and political power in Serbia cannot simply be ignored.

The club and its supporters

The complaint calls on UEFA to open disciplinary proceedings urgently and, crucially, not to treat the supporters’ behaviour and the club’s own communications as entirely separate matters.

According to the Srebrenica Memorial Center, the incident may fall under several provisions of UEFA’s disciplinary rules, including those concerning discriminatory conduct, attacks on human dignity, unacceptable political or ideological messages at sporting events, and behaviour damaging the reputation of football and UEFA itself.

Nor is this the first time Red Star has faced a UEFA disciplinary issue involving the glorification of Ratko Mladić.

The Memorial Center specifically recalled an earlier case in which UEFA concluded that praise for Mladić could not simply be regarded as support for an individual because of its offensive implications for victims persecuted on ethnic and religious grounds.

This time, however, the Memorial Center argues that there is an additional element: the message was not confined to the supporters. The club’s own media channels helped disseminate it.

That is why it is now demanding permanent exclusion.

Serbia sees it very differently

The reaction in Serbia also illustrates the enormous gulf that still exists over the legacy of Ratko Mladić.

Sportinjo, for example, responded indignantly in its headline: “Are you people normal?! Srebrenica demands Red Star be expelled from European competitions.”

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The outlet described the Memorial Center’s demand as “complete nonsense” and a “crazy request”. More significantly, it did not present Mladić primarily as a finally convicted war criminal, but as a man who, according to its interpretation, ended up in The Hague because he had “defended his own people” during the war.

Sportinjo wrote that Mladić had been declared a war criminal “by some”, while describing him as a “great Serbian military commander”. It defended Red Star’s position by arguing that, as a “great Serbian club”, it stands behind the great figures of Serbian history.

That wording perhaps illustrates the underlying problem more clearly than the UEFA complaint itself.

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Mladić is not a war criminal because “some people” regard him as one. His criminal responsibility was established by a final judgment of an international tribunal, including for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide.

The two narratives therefore have virtually no common ground. What is regarded in Srebrenica as the humiliation of victims and the glorification of a military commander convicted of genocide is treated in Serbian nationalist discourse as historical remembrance and patriotic duty.

Red Star and UEFA had not responded to the Memorial Center’s complaint at the time of writing.

It is also worth noting that Sportinjo.rs grew out of the sports section of the pro-government Informer and operates as its sports-focused outlet, meaning that its editorial and ownership background belongs to the Informer media environment.

That makes the framing somewhat easier to understand.

Mladić’s name has appeared before

There is another aspect of the affair that will be familiar to BALK readers. The Mladić cult among Red Star ultras, particularly those associated with the Delije supporters’ scene, has never been confined to football stadiums.

In April, BALK reported on graffiti glorifying Mladić in Bačka Topola, a predominantly ethnic-Hungarian town in Vojvodina. The graffiti also bore a marking associated with Delije.

The graffiti in Bačka Topola that prompted Péter Cservenák to write that Ratko Mladić was a war criminal. The smaller inscription on the right refers to Red Star Belgrade’s Delije supporter group.

When Dr Péter Cservenák, an opposition member of the local municipal assembly and vice-president of the Vojvodina Hungarian Plenum, wrote on Facebook that “Ratko Mladić is a war criminal”, the dispute soon moved beyond social media.

Someone subsequently wrote “Ratko Mladić heroj” – “Ratko Mladić is a hero” – in red marker on the door of Cservenák’s apartment.

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It was not an isolated incident. BALK had previously documented graffiti praising Mladić in Subotica and Sombor, some of it likewise accompanied by symbols associated with Red Star’s supporter scene.

That background matters in the current UEFA case because the same political phenomenon can be seen both on walls in Vojvodina and in the stands at a European football match involving Red Star supporters.

The Srebrenica complaint adds a new dimension: once the club itself distributes images carrying the message, the Memorial Center argues, responsibility can no longer simply be shifted onto the ultras.

From the terraces to politics

The relationship between Red Star’s supporter culture and Serbian politics did not begin yesterday.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has himself spoken about his past as a football supporter, while Red Star occupies a place in contemporary Serbia that goes well beyond that of an ordinary sports club. The political, nationalist, criminal and street presence associated with parts of its ultra scene has repeatedly extended beyond football.

From this perspective, the Mladić graffiti are not merely random acts of vandalism. They keep a particular interpretation of the wars of the 1990s permanently visible in public space.

The Bačka Topola case was particularly revealing. There, the message reached the front door of an ethnic-Hungarian local politician simply because he stated something that international criminal justice had established long ago.

Now the same cult has moved from the streets of Vojvodina into the European spotlight at a UEFA match.

The Srebrenica Memorial Center therefore wants this case to end with more than a fine or a handful of matches behind closed doors. It wants Red Star excluded.

Whether UEFA would ever go that far is another matter entirely. Permanent exclusion would be an extraordinarily severe and unprecedented sanction, and for now this remains a demand by the Srebrenica Memorial Center – not a decision by UEFA.

Red Star, meanwhile, has already done its bit on the pitch to spare European football’s governing body some of the trouble. The Belgrade side lost 5–1 in Plzeň and were eliminated from the Europa League.

If Red Star continue playing like that, a ban may prove unnecessary: the Belgrade club appears perfectly capable of keeping itself out of Europe.