In addition to balls and basketball players in red and black and white jerseys, the Aleksandar Nikolić hall, during the playoffs of the ABA League, many other things flew in the past days - lighters, coins, pyrotechnics, a glass bottle, as well as a mobile phone.
The target of the home crowd, regardless of who played the role of the host, were the opposing players, but above all the referees, as soon as someone did not like their decision.
"Here it is played in a bucket of blood, not for two points or the title. It is played to the death, not for fun and sport like all over the world," Milan Mažić, a former basketball referee, told the BBC in Serbian.
After the second match of the final of the regional league, basketball club Crvena zvezda was punished because of the fans by closing part of the hall at the upcoming game, so that during the third - when KK Partizan was the host - the referees for the first time interrupted the game so that part of the stands could be emptied.
The same thing happened during the fifth game of the eternal rivals - during Zvezda's household - when the entire hall was emptied in the third quarter.
"Just as the players dream of winning the title, it's our dream to referee the title matches - the final, the fifth game, it's like a boy's dream," says Mažić.
"However, it has gone so far in this area that many people just want to get away. They would pay just not to referee the derby."
- "Justice is slow, but attainable" - about the judge Felix Brih who angered Serbia
- "I was the first female soccer referee in the world"
- Why are football matches interrupted in Novi Pazar?
The victory is over, after a great drama. because everything came down to one ball and one attack, Crvena zvezda won, securing placement in the Euroleague, the strongest European club competition.
The players don't care either.
Luka Mitrović, one of Zvezda's most important players, said after the match that he had "a huge feeling of bitterness because of everything that happened" - and that it repeats itself every year.
"I am not saying this as a star player or a partisan, but as a player who endures all this and on whose back the spear breaks." said Mitrovic after the fifth game.
Raka Đurović, a former football referee, tells the BBC that in Serbia clubs and fans always blame the referees for everything, thereby "covering up their own weaknesses".
"Everyone says 'that the referee didn't do this and that to us' and a calculation is made from which a benefit for their team must be extracted," says Đurović.
"And if there was a desire to look at their own weaknesses, fans would not be allowed to do what they are doing... The best proof is this basketball ending."
ABA League Finals and Incidents
After three minutes of play in the second half of the fifth game of the playoff final, the scoreboard testified to a great battle between Zvezda and Partizan.
It said 39:39.
Matijas Lesor, the center of the black and whites, caught the ball in the attack, surpassing Dejan Davidovac from the opposite camp.
He immediately tried to place the ball in the basket, but he missed and after the deduction, he jumped with Nikola Kalinić for the new ball.
And foul - the fourth for Kalinić, one of the most important players of Zvezda.
A moment later a platoon of various objects from the stands ended up on the field.
The trio of judges, consisting of Saša Pukl, Miloš Koljenšić and Tomislav Hordov, immediately left the field, under the protection of members of the security service.
When asked how he sees everything that happened during the finals of the ABA league, Mažić answers with a deep sigh.
"Ugh, tensions reached such a level that all the matches, due to the conditions in which they were played, were irregular in their own way," Mažić believes.
The fifth match was interrupted in order for the hall to be completely emptied - a little earlier, the fans, due to the same offense, were only given a warning - which also happened during the third match, when only part of the hall was emptied.
In most matches, the visiting team was greeted with cheers and cheers cannon strikes, which is why upon completion basketball players from Zvezda and Partizan protected their biggest rivals with their bodies from fans' attacks.
Zvezda won the first two, when it was the host - the game is played without away fans due to security reasons - after which Partizan did the same, so the master's game followed.
"It's incredible that the audience here has such an influence, regardless of what sport it is," Đurović believes.
"Playoffs are played everywhere and there are massive victories away from home, only here it is impossible - we have seen what the home field means and how much pressure it is," he adds.
After each match, there would be appeals from both teams to the referees.
After the second, Partizan was dissatisfied with Montenegrin referee Igor Dragojević, and Crvena zvezda was especially dissatisfied with Matej Boltauzer from Slovenia.
Mažić says that this pressure also affects the referees.
"Milivoje Jovčić, one of our best judges, canceled the entire series - he refused to judge - for which he will probably bear the consequences, while Ilija Belošević went for knee surgery.
"A man probably doesn't want to be put in that situation at all and to be dragged around in the newspapers, and according to his biography, he is one of the best judges in Europe of all time."
- Became a football referee to defeat his own ego
- For the first time in history: Women referee men at the World Cup in football
- A soccer player in Brazil accused of trying to kill a referee
What is it like to be a judge in Serbia?
None of that is new when it comes to sports in Serbia.
Mažić says that during his three-decade long career, he faced everything and anything, and he divides the events in the stands into two segments.
The first is insults from the audience, which he says are "harmless" and do not affect regularity.
"Yes, the word is hard, it hurts and you can insult a player, a coach, a member of the board, whatever happens - it's neither nice nor civilized, but it's not physically dangerous for the actors.
"However, when a mobile phone, a glass bottle or a phone charger flies onto the pitch, which we've seen so far, it hits someone in the head, and that affects regularity."
Mažić also sees a great danger in the publication of judges' data.
"Club managers and coaches often talk about referees, mention them by name and surname, and then someone puts their personal information, phone numbers, addresses on the Internet...
"You look back on the street, and you wonder if someone recognizes you or not, so you don't have to sit in a cafe, because maybe someone says 'there's the one who refereed the derby, let's beat him up'."
And there is the well-known attitude - "the judge is always to blame".
BBC interlocutors say that referees also make mistakes, but that clubs often look for an alibi outside the team.
"It's easier for everyone to start from other people's mistakes, not from their own mistakes," says Mažić.
"The simplest thing is to analyze the referee's mistakes, and the players' and coaches' mistakes are a little more difficult," adds Đurović.
However, accusations of match-fixing by fans in Serbia are almost daily, especially in football, where every penalty or series victory is pointed out as evidence of irregularities.
The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, spoke on this occasion last year.
"I am very sad how the end of the football championship looks like for us.
"The mafia gang from football, who are laughed at by the whole of Europe and the world, we will arrest them all - let the people see if I am telling the truth, and how the next championship will be played." Vučić told TV Pink in May 2021.
There were no significant changes in the meantime.
Srđan Obradović, football referee arrested in 2018, he was sentenced in 2021 to 15 months in prison, with a ban on playing football for ten years.
The Jagodina referee was detained after the match between Spartak Subotica and Radnički from Niš (2:0), and was convicted for "using his official position and favoring the home team".
At that time, both teams were in the game for placement in Europe, and before the match, large payments on the victory of the visiting team were noticed at the bookmakers.
"It is incomparably more difficult to be an objective and correct judge, who strictly applies the rule that the one who is better decides on the field," says Đurović.
"It's easier for everyone to succumb to pressure in favor of the stronger and to lead the game that way."
He adds that it is still a question of how the judges progress.
During the nineties, he says, the most important thing was "whether you are a favorite of a powerful person - a club, a sports club, a businessman or a politician".
And before his career as a referee, Đurović was actively involved in football.
Then, he points out, he realized that "the greatest evil on the field is when you experience injustice from the man in black."
"Back then, the judges were exclusively in that color," he says shortly.
"That's why I later had the motive to give the players the opportunity to solve it themselves, even though I told the children to play sports in order to learn to deal with injustice.
"You lose when you're better, you don't play when you deserve... That's all righteous injustice, lack of luck, not the decision of the man in black."
- "Forgive me for being silent for a moment" - Partizan primer
- Zvezda primer - three things that Zvezda fans need to know in the middle of the night
- The Milan Trilogy: How foggy it was on that foggy night
In what conditions are matches played in Serbia?
Almost four decades ago, on November 30, 1977, at the match between the then national team of Yugoslavia and Spain, from the western stand of the Red Star stadium, towards the Spanish player Juanito Gomez, the bottle flew and hit him in the head.
Annoyed that Juanito, after leaving the field, pointed his finger down at the crowd, a spectator threw a small glass bottle and hit the Spaniard in the middle of the head.
Juanito was then carried off the field on a stretcher.
It was one of the first such incidents at stadiums in the former Yugoslavia.
Ten years later, on October 26, 1988, at the match of the second round of the UEFA Cup, between Partizan and Roma, from the south stand of the black and white stadium, Italian football player Giuseppe Giannini was hit in the head with a lighter as he prepared to take a corner.
Due to this incident, Partizan had to play the next match away from Belgrade as a host by UEFA's decision.
At the match between Novi Pazar and Partizan, in April 2013, supporters of the Novi Pazar club threw a hand-made bomb stuck with nails which did not explode.
In the summer of 2005, Red Star fans pelted the bench of the visiting Croatian Inter from Zaprešić with hard objects, including a mobile phone, at the stadium in Belgrade.
Even then, the Belgrade club was punished with one game without fans.
Zvezda fans are in the final of the ABA basketball league against Partizan in 2012 in Železnik spat at opposing players and coaching staff, shook the baskets when Partizan players made free throws.
In June 2014, supporters of the red and white team threw firecrackers at Partizan coach Duško Vujošević in the Aleksandar Nikolić Hall in Belgrade - one of them fell near his feet, but he was unharmed.
In January 2015, Zvezda fans came to the field of the Belgrade Arena threw pig's hooves in the match with Turkish Galatasaray in the Euroleague in January 2015.
Partizan supporters also used similar methods at basketball matches.
So in June 2015, after the match with Crvena Zvezda in the regional league, they broke off a chair from the stands, shot and hit Stefan Jović, an opposing player.
Two years later, he was hit in the head with a lighter during a match with Partizan, in the Eurocup. Saša Obradović was hit, then coach of Lokomotiv from Kubanj.
Both beautiful and ugly
Raka Đurović, former football referee
There were difficult matches, strong derbies, but I am very proud of one.
It is a match between Dubočica and Čukarički in Leskovac, in the mid-nineties.
Dubočica needed a draw to probably enter the First A League and the stadium was packed, there were more than 10.000 people.
However, the guest got 1:0 and Dubočica missed a historic opportunity.
When the match ended, I let the players leave the field and followed them.
Then I felt that the audience would not boo me.
If the home club does not achieve a good result, the judges usually send off with whistles, but this time it did not happen - I was sent off with applause.
And I remember the match between Novi Pazar and Borac from Čačak, for entry into the First League.
A terribly serious injury happened to one player, and that without a foul - he slipped and hit another player's knee with his face and cheekbone.
A broken cheekbone, a deformed face, on the public address system, viewers who have a certain blood type are invited to come forward... Life was at stake.
All these are tremendous pressures on the judge.
And I have to admit that I didn't play that game well until the end - I didn't influence the result, but I lost the strings.
It's not easy when it comes to injuries.
"Is it worth being a judge? It's worth it!"
The Serbian Basketball League (KLS) starts in a few days and only a miracle could prevent a new derby between Zvezda and Partizan in the final.
That final could lead to a new rise in tension, although the title of Serbian champion has no additional value, such as placement in Europe.
Only one more line is written for the winner, and it is important to the fans who has more.
"A few years ago, there was an idea that Zvezda and Partizan matches would be played completely without an audience, and maybe we should try to implement that now," Mažić believes.
"The partial emptying of the stands showed that it is difficult to play even in those circumstances".
Raka Đurović believes that the situation on the stands can be resolved very quickly, if there is "the will of people from politics, local self-government and clubs".
"Thus, the judges would very easily enter the peaceful tunnel of a serious trial, as soon as there is no pressure from the side," he states.
"But you see that it is popular now, that there have never been more announcements from clubs and other pressures from the media, which are often used and abused."
Is it even worth being a judge then?
"It's worth it, it's worth it," says Đurović shortly.
However, as he states, in order to do that, first of all, you have to love the work of a judge.
"At the beginning, I didn't and I was doing some other job, but I missed football.
"Eventually I started refereeing, and I thought that was the last thing I would do in football... It's worth it."
Mažić says the same, after a long sigh.
"I met a lot of good people, made a lot of friends, traveled the whole world, earned some money, which is far from the players and coaches, but it is quite enough for a normal life.
"When I add up and subtract everything, there were many more beautiful things than ugly."
So if he could go back in time and choose again, he would be a judge again?
"I probably would... Masochistic variant," he says with a smile.
P.S.
BBC in Serbian: Thank you very much for this conversation, we will hear from you on another occasion, I hope a nicer one, if it is not throwing something into the field.
Mazic: There are better topics, believe me.
I hope that will the focus will be shifted to some other things in the future.
Basketball is a wonderful sport, the most beautiful to me, and I feel bad when it collapses in this way.
This shouldn't be happening to her...
Follow us on Facebook,Twitter i Viber. If you have a topic proposal for us, contact us at bbcnasrpskom@bbc.co.uk
Bonus video:
