Serbian football facing battle

Serbian Football Association President Zvezdan Terzic said the country's football is a direct reflection of the state its society is in and feels the country's first division clubs face a long and hard battle to draw respectable crowds back to the matches.

"We must keep both feet on the ground and bear in mind that we can't compare ourselves to leading soccer nations like Germany, England and other European giants," said Terzic.

"The average first division crowd of 2,000 fans per game needs to double for a start, at which point sponsors would take more interest and a consequent chain reaction would result in a dramatic all-round improvement."

The break-up of former Yugoslavia and its football league has reduced top-level competition in the region to poor quality top divisions without any real strength in depth.

In Serbia, it comes down to an annual battle for supremacy between 1991 European Cup winners Red Star Belgrade and its foes Partizan.

Also detrimental to getting fans back into ramshackle stadiums, many of which lack the most basic facilities, is that local television screens a dozen or so matches from Europe's top leagues every weekend.

"New generations of fans in Serbia don't see Red Star and Partizan players as their new idols," said Terzic. "They worship the world's modern-day soccer heroes like Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane."

Last season's league match between Partizan and Red Star drew an all-time low of 10,000 fans that either failed to turn up or walked out at half-time.

In September, twice as many came but they jeered both clubs off the field after being treated to another tepid 0-0 draw.

With trophy-laden sports such as basketball and volleyball attracting bigger crowds than first division football teams, Terzic hinted he might entertain the idea of asking the clubs to grant free admission to fans after the upcoming winter break.

"We will give it a thought. We will talk to representatives of first division soccer clubs during the winter break and make a decision after consultations with them," Terzic said.

"In spite of all the hardships, there are some good soccer matches here worth watching. The recent one between Vozdovac and Smederevo was a cracker, I only wish a capacity crowd of 7,000 had turned up to see it."

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.