This time it wasn't about some dubious flag subject to any kind of interpretation, some awkward Croatian coat of arms without Tuđman's zoo, or some pseudo-historical checkerboard with an initial white field: this time it was a very accurate and precise official flag of the Independent State of Croatia. the famous tricolor with a dark blue letter In a framed triplet tendril in the upper left corner, all according to Article 2 of the Legal Provisions on the State Coat of Arms and the State Flag as signed by Chief Ante Pavelić on April 28, 1941.
Someone brought such a Nazi flag to the European qualification match between Croatia and Latvia at Rujevica in Rijeka, and proudly waved it for the entire first half - enough time for the FARE observer in the stands to see and document it all, and UEFA to initiate disciplinary action proceedings against the Croatian Football Association, and Croatian coach Zlatko Dalić, in righteous anger, assessed that, obviously, "everything was set up".
"In my opinion, it was all set up, because how else can you explain that one flag appears among hundreds of flags and that is the one to be photographed, and it appears at that very moment and someone takes a picture of it?", Dalić poured bile in front of the Nova cameras. TV. "In the end, we were reported by those organizations that deal with it, that make a living from it and demand punishment against Croatia. In my opinion, this is stupidity and the continuation of looking for ways to stop the Croatian national team in any way."
"I agree with coach Dalić that it was rigged. I don't know who's behind it, but it's no coincidence that the flag is raised four or five times just to be seen as a representative of FARE, to see the Ustasha sign sixty or seventy meters away. It's not by chance," added the president of the football association, Marijan Kustić, after which, of course, detectives from the Croatian media also took an interest in the case. Portal
Dnevnik.hr discovered that the three fans who unfurled the Ustasha flag at Rujevica come from Trnovac Bartolovečki, while the FARE delegate who filmed and reported them comes, interestingly, from - Čakovec. It may not mean anything to you, but it does to the researchers of Dnevnik.hr: Trnovec Bartolovečki is, namely, near Varaždin, and Varaždin is - now you are slapping your forehead - near Čakovec. "Therefore, the question arose in itself," conclude Dnevnik's hard-working investigators, "is this about sabotage and is the company involved in this story known?"
"The whole story becomes even stranger", the big headline will soon be included in the famous Sportske novosti. "In fact, the delegate who made the report to UEFA was also at the Croatia - Wales match played in March in Split, and then he also reported to HNS because he allegedly saw an Ustasha flag with the inscription 'Za dom spremni' on the northern stand of Poljuda. However, he did not present the appropriate evidence, so UEFA rejected his application. Now, in this case from Rijeka, he submitted videos and photos as evidence." Coincidentally? If you thought that it was only "interesting" that he was a FARE delegate from Čakovec, here are some other extraordinary points of interest: "It is interesting that in Rijeka he had a ticket for the VIP box, which was provided for him by Uefa. However, he was not sitting in the VIP box, but in sector Z7, which is twenty meters away on the west stand, directly opposite sector I4 on the east stand, where the Ustasha flag was unfurled!"
In short, the Croatian coach, the president of the Croatian Football Association and the research teams of the Croatian media tried to untangle the coincidences and interesting facts: where did the flag of the Independent State of Croatia come from at the match of the Croatian football team right in front of the strict FARE delegate?
Really? Where did the NDH flag come from at the match of the Croatian national football team?!
For someone who hasn't spent the past thirty years hidden in a scrape on the seabed somewhere around Palagruža, or in some dead-end backwater of the kilometer-and-a-half-deep Luka Cave on Velebit, or in the Prime Minister's office on Markovo trg in the cold north of Zagreb - for someone who in the real state of Croatia, was ever longer than fifteen seconds at all - the case is somewhat easier. The NDH flag at the match of the Croatian national team?! What other one, for God's sake?
For all those thirty years, from the first match of that national team until today, the NDH flag has been in its place in Croatian stadiums, and chanting, singing and saluting the Ustasha army is a common fan folklore. Here, just by heart from the brain's shallows, without Googling: in 2006, at a friendly match with Italy in Livorno, Croatian fans formed a swastika with their bodies; the following year, in the match against Bosnia and Herzegovina in Koševo, they formed the letter U; ten years ago, at the qualifying match for the World Cup against Serbia, all of Maksimir thundered "Kill the Serb!" and "Za dom spremni!", and after the victory over Iceland, Josip Joe Šimunić took the official microphone and together with the stands led "Za dom spremni!", for which, in addition to Fifa's punishment, he also got the job of assistant coach to Ante Čačić; 2014 in a friendly match against Switzerland in St. Gallen's Croatian fans chanted "Za dom!" and "Let's go Ustaše!", and in 2016 HNS was punished because the fans chanted "Za dom spremni!" with the Nazi salute. and in the matches against Israel and Hungary.
Finally, Ustasha resentment is not alien to Dalić's generation either: at the mass reception of the silver Vatreni at Jelačića Square after the 2018 World Cup in Russia, the national team members themselves invited the Ustasha hit singer Marko Perković to the stage, and together with him and a hundred thousand people sang "loša bila čres" "the fifth, scattered us all over the world", all with the Aryan Nazi chorus, "blue blood, white faces, new women are born". Even last year, for example, Croatian stars Marcelo Brozović and Dejan Lovren celebrated their bronze medal at the World Cup in Qatar in Brozović's cafe in Velika Gorica by shouting "Ready for home!" to his native Livno.
And after all, shock and disbelief: the Ustasha flag on Rujevica!
For thirty years, that flag has been flying on the Croatian stands, accompanied by Nazi salutes, hateful chants and the oath "Ready for home!" - apart from perhaps the mind-numbing "to fight, to fight" nothing else is actually shouted at Croatia's matches - the entire Dalić's most famous generation of Croatian representative football has clearly declared itself as a fan of the genre, and the selectors and the football association, together with shocked journalists, are investigating where the official NDH flag at the match of the Croatian national football team! Really, from where? Maybe, I'm speaking from memory now, to check the locker room?
Eighty years after the Second World War, Croatian football stadiums are the last completely preserved pockets of the Independent State of Croatia, and the idea that some kind of evil masterminds from the ranks of UEFA, FIFA, FARE and domestic traitors from Masonic VIP lodges should bring the Ustasha flag into the stands to organize a hellish conspiracy and plan a super-secret operation is not only deeply mind-boggling, but also deeply insulting to the Ustasha movement as a whole.
Of course, in the end it was discovered that the guy who "sabotaged" Vatrene by proudly waving the NDH flag was actually the son of a successful entrepreneur and HDZ member, member of the Trnovac Bartolovečki Municipal Council and president of the HDZ Councilors' Club, who is currently in court together with his father for a drunken attack on police officers. What shock and disbelief! If you had given me ten seconds to think, I would have said at first that the flag - except, of course, if it is not part of the HNS protocol - was probably brought in by the arrogant son of some local sheriff and a powerful man from Hadeze from some, I have no idea, Trnovac Bartolovečki.
The story thus got a perfect ending, so to speak, perfection. Ever since the glorious nineties, the HDZ has made the Croatian national team its own party football section, giving it the Ustashi meaning and iconography, so that thirty years later, HDZ's football governor Marijan Kustić and HDZ's pre-election poodle Zlatko Dalić, because of the NDH banner on Rujevica, only the young Hadeze mamlaz from Trnovac Bartolovečki was surprised, who - as we read - "had no idea that the Ustasha flag was banned in Croatia". And I trust him completely. Who could have known that? I, for one, am hearing it for the first time.
If, in fact, it is really - as Kustić claims - "that flag is raised four or five times so that the Ustasha symbol can be seen sixty or seventy meters away", of course it is "not accidental": this matter of raising the state flag on ceremonial occasions is regulated by the aforementioned Legal Provision on the State Coat of Arms and the State Flag of April 28, 1941.
Unless something has changed in the meantime. In which case it would be nice if the HDZ informed us about it.
Bonus video:
