The elimination from Rudar in the Montenegrin Cup was, it seems, the last straw - the former president of the football club Sutjeska, Marko Mitrović, resigned from that position tonight.
In addition to him, Radonja Zejak, a member of the Board of Directors, also resigned.
"We use this opportunity to inform the Montenegrin public that we are resigning from the positions of president and member of the Board of Directors of FC "Sutjeska-Nikšić" Nikšić. Bearing in mind the club's past results in the 1st Montenegrin football league in the 2024/25 season, which culminated in the relegation from the Montenegrin Cup against the Rudar team, as mature and responsible people who fully accept their responsibility, we have decided to resign from our positions in the Board of Directors of FC "Sutjeska-Nikšić", according to the statement signed by Mitrović and Zejak.
They said that for them being on the Sutjeska Board of Directors was an honor and a great burden of responsibility, "which, apparently, we have not been up to lately."
"Of course, we are proud of everything we have done so far (once champions of Montenegro, once winners of the Montenegrin Cup, in the 2023/24 season we fought for the title until just a few rounds before the end). Bad decisions before the beginning of the current season led to the situation we are currently in. In the absence of a solution for the position of sports director, we should not have allowed the head of the profession to lead a transfer policy and we should not have agreed to the budget of the Municipality of Nikšić, which does not meet the aspirations of a club that only strives to win trophies , however, we agreed to it with the best of intentions, believing that the head of the profession would compensate for the budget deficit with his knowledge and professionalism. Obviously, we were wrong."
They thanked all employees of the club for their professional cooperation.
"We wish Sutjeska all the best in the period ahead, with the sincere hope that she will quickly overcome the current crisis and return to her rightful place in Montenegrin football," said the statement signed by Mitrović and Zejak.
In 2021, Marko Mitrović became the president of Sutjeska. In the first season, the team, under the leadership of Milija Savović (who came in place of Miljan Radović), won the title dominantly, and then in the summer of 2022, after being eliminated from the qualification for the Conference League by Klaksvik from Faro, Savović parted ways with Nikšić.
Savović was then succeeded on the bench by Nenad Brnović, who won the Cup with the team and finished second in the league with the same number of points as Budućnost (70 each).
That summer (in 2023), Sutjeska experienced a debacle in Europe, being eliminated by Santa Coloma from Andorra in the Conference League qualifiers, and then Brnović parted ways with the club, which was anything but friendly.
Last season, Brnović was the first of the four coaches who led the Nikšić team. He was succeeded by Vladimir Janković, who left after the first half, and claimed that Sutjeska played "dominant football".
Janković was succeeded by Dragan Mijanović, who remained on the bench for four games, and was replaced by Miljan Radović in March of this year.
Last season, Sutjeska was left without Europe for the first time after eight seasons, and after three without winning a trophy. Radović remained the coach, but was fired at the beginning of September. He didn't part ways with Sutjeska either, it seems, since he claimed at a conference that his management interfered in the selection of the team, and that one player had a clause in his contract that he had to play 70 minutes per game.
Instead of Radović, Savović returned, and after 15 rounds in the domestic championship, Sutjeska ranks eighth and is in the play-off zone, with 16 points. All that was followed today by elimination from the Cup and a 1:0 defeat by Rudar.
And then the club was left without a president.
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