Judo Federation rejects accusations: We do not want to participate in reality show, we call on competent authorities to check our business

The war of statements between the Judo Federation of Montenegro and Srđan Mrvaljević has been going on for weeks, and the umbrella association of this sport in our country has issued a statement denying the allegations made by the former national team member.

In recent days, Mrvaljević shared on social media that the Montenegrin Judo Federation paid 680 thousand euros to the company MNE sport doo during last year's European Championships in Podgorica, so that it could pass the money on to companies involved in organizing the major competition in the capital of Montenegro.

The former world vice-champion suspects that this particular deal involves corruption and has called on the competent state authorities to react because he believes that these are illegal and punishable actions.

"Imagine that a sports federation that receives money from the Ministry, the state and the Government to organize the European Championship hands over the organization to a private company and pays it 680.000, and they later engage dozens of their own companies and invoice between 10 and 50 thousand euros for various inflated services. A huge amount of money is extracted and then divided. This is a classic example of crime. This is just one of the items, there are many and, of course, we will expose them all. Once again, I call on the Special Police Department and the Special State Prosecutor's Office, as well as the State Audit Institution, to urgently enter the Judo Federation and seize all documentation. This is a serious crime and any layperson who looks at these papers will understand what it is about," said Mrvaljević.

The Judo Federation publicly announced the contracts with the company MNE Sport doo, as well as where the money was forwarded, claiming that all work was done transparently and according to the law.

Like Mrvaljević, they invited state authorities to visit them and freely examine all contracts, and the former national team member was asked why the delegate of his Judo Club Ipon voted for the current leadership of the Federation at the Electoral Assembly in February, and also supported the financial report for the previous year in which the European Championship was held.

We are publishing the statement of the Judo Federation of Montenegro in full:

"The constant unfounded attempts to discredit the management of the Judo Federation of Montenegro by former judoka and now club owner Srđan Mrvaljević, who has been repeating untruths for days to diminish the achievements of the people who have been successfully leading this organization since 2022, have led us to react once again, so that the Montenegrin public does not think that his lies are actually the truth.

Using vocabulary that is least befitting of a man who presents himself as a champion, Mr. Mrvaljević unsuccessfully seeks the attention of our sports public.

We remind Mrvaljević that his club's delegate at the Electoral Assembly of our association, just a few months ago, voted for the current management and supported him to continue at the helm of the Judo Federation for the next four years, as well as, among other things, supporting the financial report for last year, which he is currently trying to question in an absolutely unfounded and baseless manner.

Mr. Mrvaljević has been avoiding mentioning these facts since the beginning of the campaign that, for reasons known to him, he is waging against the Alliance, and which he has intensified in recent days by spreading numerous untruths.

First, he tried to deceive the public with stories that we had banned children from competitions, when in fact he was sanctioned for not respecting the rules, which are the same for everyone and which, at least while this management is at the helm of the Federation, will have to be respected, not only by Mr. Mrvaljević, but by the entire judo community.

And the children, we repeat, never left the tatami at any point, but continued to compete.

When everyone realized that the story about the violation of children's rights was actually a classic hoax, he continued with similar actions, falsely accusing us of criminal acts related to the financial report, and he will have to prove his "knowledge" before the only competent institution for such matters, the competent court.

The Judo Federation of Montenegro is a transparent sports organization and, in order to truthfully inform the public, on our website (www.judomne.me) we published all financial reports - as indisputable proof that we spent the funds for the European Championship, as well as for all other activities during our mandate, legally and economically. This was not the case when others were running this organization.

Last week, following an "anonymous report", although it is hard to believe that there is anyone who does not know where it came from, sports inspectors from the Ministry of Sports and Youth conducted an inspection of the Federation. The report on the inspection is in the spirit of all of the above and serves as a source of pride for the management of the Federation of Serbia and Montenegro.

We will repeat - the doors of our organization are open to all state authorities and they can check the legality of our work in every segment of the functioning of the Judo Federation at any time, and we invite them to do so.

If we go back to the not-so-distant past, to the time when a former judoka, unfortunately, was asking questions about our sport, we can remind ourselves that those were years of discord, quarrels, and divisions, as evidenced by the archives of Montenegrin, not only sports media. Back then, we had two federations, and in fact, we did not have the serious Judo Federation that Montenegro deserves. We were marginalized internationally.

After the current leadership, led by Jovica Rečević, took responsibility for the work of the Federation, we became the association we needed to be long ago, restoring the reputation of judo sport and the judo community in the domestic and international arena. Together, we built a system of equal conditions and opportunities for all clubs, competitors, coaches, officials and other members of the Federation.

The unity of the judo community was demonstrated at the Electoral Assembly on February 11, where, with 100% attendance of delegates (43 in total), unanimous support was given to the management for a new four-year term.

In previous public addresses, we talked about what we have done from 2022 to today, with a special emphasis on last year's European Championship - officially the best organized event on the tatami in the previous year on the Old Continent.

We have provided the best possible conditions for the preparations of national team players of all ages, during the year we have enabled them to spar with the best judokas in Europe at Olympic training camps, with support for performances at the most important tournaments (Grand Prix, Grand Slam, European Opens, European Cups), and we have allocated 41 thousand euros for scholarships alone, and we are optimistic about the second part of the season, during which new major competitions await us. We will organize one of them in early September, when the best juniors in Europe will perform in Podgorica, while in December we will host representatives of all federations from our continent at the European Judo Union Congress in Budva.

The fact that we have regained our reputation in the European and World Judo Federations is also evidenced by the fact that the leaders of the Judo Federation of Montenegro have become members of the boards and bodies of these organizations, as well as the fact that participants and officials from international competitions from our country return with fantastic impressions, and Podgorica has been positioning itself as an irreplaceable European judo destination for years.

We have worked too hard to return judo to its rightful place and, with the help of the state, which we thank again this time, as well as our sponsors, we continue to move forward, because the daily support of the clubs shows that we are on the right track.

"We will no longer make any public announcements on this occasion, because we do not want to participate in the reality show that former judoka Srđan Mrvaljević is trying to create, but will focus all our energy on the progress of judo in Montenegro, which is the mission of this leadership," the statement from the Judo Federation of Montenegro states.