The NGO Football Montenegro has expressed its condolences after yesterday's penalty imposed by UEFA on Arsenal from Tivat.
Arsenal was fined for fixing a match with Armenian side Alashkert in the 2023 Conference League qualifiers, and neither the players nor any club official were spared severe punishments.
Arsenal will have to pay half a million euros and have been banned from Europe for 10 years. Club representative Ranko Krgović and player Nikola Čelebić have been banned for life from football, while footballers Ćetko Manojlović, Radule Živković and Dušan Puletić will each have to spend 10 years out of the sport.
The NGO Football Montenegro points out in its statement that this punishment is "the culmination of everything we have been warning about for years."
We are publishing the full statement of the NGO Football Montenegro:
"Montenegrin football has for decades become synonymous with irregularity, with political influence in decisions about who will be at the head of the club and who at the head of the Federation, and it all turned out to be a series of wrong decisions that were made to the detriment of our children, to the detriment of the progress of football, to the detriment of everything healthy and normal that was supposed to happen in Montenegrin football.
Football Montenegro has warned for years and continues to warn about the evil that befell us when "football" was given into the hands of ignorant, semi-educated, uninformed people to take charge. We live in a country where people do not understand how football works, how football has become a serious business, how decisions on punishments cannot be influenced by anyone, even if that someone supported you for a mandate in UEFI and FIFA.
Yesterday's draconian punishment for Arsenal FC, its players and club management is just the culmination of everything we have been warning about for years. We all know that what is being played and organized in our football is a pure improvisation of this most popular sport. We are all aware, both journalists and the general public, that a lot of irregular things are happening and the vast majority are silent.
We can only imagine how much solid evidence UEFA has when it decided on such a draconian punishment. I repeat, we have been warning for years that this evil must be stopped, but it is already too late and our football is once again on the pillar of shame of the European public!
For the umpteenth time, we ask the entities that continue to irregularly run the Football Association: Why are you doing this, why are you destroying the future of children who love this sport, why are you digging a hole in Montenegrin football?
"We ask both the authorities and the Prosecutor's Office: Why are you silent about all this and until when? When do you plan to tell Pantelia: Enough is enough, you should have gilded everything, and not completely buried Montenegrin football," the NGO Football Montenegro announced.
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