The President of the Municipal Assembly (MA) of Tivat, Miljan Marković (New Serbian Democracy), scheduled a special session of the local parliament for February 11th with only one item on the agenda – the report of the "Commission for Conducting an Analysis of the Operations of the Arsenal Football Club from Tivat".
"Guided by the best intentions of making FC 'Arsenal' the pride of Tivat and a true breeding ground for young talents, the Commission made several specific recommendations in its report for improving the work and functioning of the club," Marković wrote on his Facebook profile, where he immediately shared the Commission's report, although it has not yet been submitted to the councilors.
The commission, which the SO established a few months ago, consisted exclusively of representatives of the local government constituents in Tivat, including Marković, while representatives of the opposition, although they were offered it, did not want to join the body. The official reason for the establishment of the commission was the fact that UEFA had drastically punished Arsenal last year because some of its former players and board members had fixed the result of Arsenal's match against Alaškert in the 2023 Conference League qualifiers.
The commission was led by Tivat Action councilor Sanja Vuković, and its work resulted in a report of almost 40 pages with "recommendations" that, as they stated, should ensure "legal, transparent, financially sustainable, and functional sports operations of the club" and that "the Municipality of Tivat, as the founder, owner, and main financier of the club, must make a strategic decision on what kind of Arsenal FC it wants in the next five-year period." The report, by the way, largely identified the President of the Municipality of Tivat Željko Komnenović (Narod vijeđuje) as allegedly responsible for the scandals that rocked Arsenal and for most of what concerns the operations and management of the club.
On this occasion, Komnenović issued a statement tonight, assessing that "today we received the right answer as to why the President of the Municipal Assembly Miljan Marković did not want to schedule a session in December to adopt the municipal budget for 2026, forgetting about the Assembly's work program."
"It is now clear that the Report on the work of the 'Commission for the Analysis of the Business of Arsenal FC' was more important to him than the budget as a political tool for settling scores with the People Wins and that his real intention was to adopt the budget only after this 'report'. The report, which will be discussed in the coming days, fortunately for the Citizens' List People Wins (NP) and all well-intentioned Tivat residents, does not bring any of the spectacles that its authors announced on social media and in Tivat cafes - 'millions that were being taken out of the club, shady dealings, crime'. The text of the report, written by Tivat Action with the moral support of Marković and an offer to other members to contribute, was written as a criminal complaint against Željko Komnenović and NP. Instead of filing a criminal complaint with the competent authority themselves, the authors wanted the members of the commission to be both judges and executioners instead of them. However, at the last moment, the members of the commission corrected the text written according to the 'take it or leave it' model so that at least formally there would be no criminal complaint, and Marković did not even wait "...for the ink to dry, so he immediately published the report on his personal FB address, which was signed by five of the eight members of the commission. He immediately, without consultation, scheduled a session of the Municipal Assembly for February 11th, at which, as he himself decided and announced, the report would be the only item on the agenda," Komnenović said.
The Mayor of the Municipality believes that the Commission did not approach the analysis of the situation with Arsenal with the best intentions mentioned by Marković, because its Report does not mention the criminal charges that Komnenović and Arsenal's CEO Dejan Kandić filed immediately after the scandal with UEFA broke out, "against those who fixed the result of the Arsenal - Alaškert match." As Komnenović stated, there was no mention of the criminal charges against the former club's management, headed by businessman Rado Gago Arsić, close to the DPS, "for the illegal issuance of a wall around the stadium, nor of the audit report of the independent auditing company VM KOD Podgorica" that reviewed Arsenal's business books. Komnenović points out that the independent external audit "gave a 'qualified opinion' on Arsenal's business, which was based on the official balance sheets for the last four years and gave an opinion that was not negative."
"This obviously did not fit into the report's authors' project," Komnenović said, pointing out that, from a formal and legal perspective, the Tivat Municipal Council Commission could not have been involved in reviewing Arsenal's business at all, because that sports club is not owned by the Municipality of Tivat, nor is the local government its founder.
"If the commission formed by the Tivat Municipal Council had really approached this job with good intentions, it would have found evidence of its incompetence because, believe it or not – there is no evidence that the Tivat Municipal Assembly ever officially made a decision that the Municipality of Tivat is the founder of Arsenal FC! There are only statements by former Municipal Presidents Ivan Novosel (DPS) and Siniša Kusovac (DPS) that the Municipality is the founder of the club, and interestingly, at the time when the president of the club's Management Board was Rado Gago Arsić. The same one who, according to some signatories of the report on Arsenal FC's operations, was their 'good neighbor' and the one behind the company 'Corleone' to which Morsko dobro illegally issued a parking space on Seljanovo. The same one who led the campaign in 2016, when DPS won absolute power in the elections in Tivat. Based on the statements of Novosel and Kusovac, Arsenal was registered in the register of sports clubs, which states that the decision was made by the 'assembly', while concealing the fact that it was not the Tivat Municipal Assembly, but the club's assembly at the time which was controlled by Arsić," Komnenović emphasized.
He pointed out that "it is clear that the Arsenal - Alaškert match was sold by members of the then Arsenal team who were recorded in the UEFA disciplinary committee report for the needs of criminal clans and organizations, and that they had both a lucrative and political motive for doing so."
"The obvious intention is to equate criminals with those who filed charges against them, to try and confront them in order to wrest Arsenal from the jaws of the criminal octopus, to improve sports infrastructure and to create one of the most successful youth facilities in the country. Well, you, the authors of the report, will not get away with that," Komnenović said.
SDP councilor in the Tivat Municipal Assembly and representative of the European Union, Ćazim Lisičić, assessed tonight that "the content of the Commission's report clearly indicates that the problems in the functioning of the club go beyond the sporting framework and raise the issue of institutional responsibility."
"The findings of the Report indicate a dysfunctional management system, non-transparent financial operations and a lack of accountability, with the passive role of the Municipality of Tivat as a key financier. In the previous period, I pointed out that the case of FC 'Arsenal' Tivat is not an isolated incident, but part of a broader picture of institutional irresponsibility in the Municipality of Tivat. The Commission's report now gives institutional weight to this concern," Lisičić pointed out, adding that for this reason "the session on February 11th must not be reduced to a formal consideration of a document."
"The Mayor did not react even when the first serious indications of abuses arrived, nor when UEFA imposed draconian sanctions. Now, before the Assembly on February 11, there is no longer any room for excuses: this is the moment when responsibility must be taken, not relativized. Therefore, the Assembly session on February 11 must result in concrete measures: the immediate dismissal of the management of Arsenal FC and the initiation of appropriate criminal charges by the founders, namely the Municipality of Tivat, in accordance with the findings of the Report and applicable regulations," Lisičić stated.
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