The situation in Montenegrin sports is bad, there are many problems that have not been solved for years, and everything was best seen during the Competition for co-financing the programs of sports organizations.
Almost three months have passed since it was announced, and the federations have not yet received money for normal functioning, which is why the director of the Directorate for Sports and Youth, Marko Begović, was the target.
Dissatisfied with the work of both Begović and the Management are the Council for Sports, which issued a statement yesterday and noted that the acting director does not have the competence for the job he performs.
However, its member Dušan Dragović is dissuaded from the position of the Council, who criticizes the body in which he is for "Vijesti".
"I want to dissociate myself from the story at the meeting held on April 14 at the Directorate for Sports and Youth. Since 2017, when the Council was formed, it was the first meeting I attended, and another one was held on March 9, 2020, and then it was agreed to work through the Viber group. We only provoked everything that was said in the Council's announcement, because everything would have been different if we had worked smarter. Thus, everything that has been said can also apply to us and the Council, because we are all to blame for this state of affairs in sports. As a body incorporated in the Law on Sports, we should have met more often, to make sure that the media follows our work, and not to do as anyone pleases, but to influence the improvement of the situation. Suffice it to say that we have neither the Rulebook nor the Rules of Procedure," said the flag bearer at the Paralympic Games in Beijing and the head of the Montenegrin mission at the POI in London and Rio de Janeiro.
The first general secretary of the Paralympic Committee of Montenegro believes that many are to blame for the state of sports, but he takes the responsibility on himself and the Sports Council, which, in his opinion, did not take advantage of the opportunity.
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"All this is happening is a pure product of inaction. It doesn't even matter whether it's the COK, the Ministry of Sports or the Directorate for Sports and Youth. I want to speak from my position, because it was we, as an umbrella advisory organization, who should have preempted, prevented all these problems, to prevent this from happening with our attitudes, advice and decisions. But we didn't do anything, we just faked the Sports Council. And now we have come to solve problems, to pretend to be smart, and now there is a small pond, but a lot of crocodiles".
Dragović believes that the sports strategy and categorization are poorly done.
"Sports strategy had to be done smarter, and when you see the categorization, you have to ask yourself what is happening with basic sports. The situation is strangely set up. Now we are scratching our heads about where the money is, and we should have solved it earlier. It was decided to form a Viber group, to make the work more dynamic, but this can be done for the Council of Tenants, not in the Council for Sports. These things are for people to sit down seriously and deal with until the situation is resolved. The first thing we should do is to turn to basic sports and ask ourselves why swimming, athletics and gymnastics are not in the first category, and not to look at how developed a sport is."
The former Paralympian, who was part of the last Commission for the distribution of funds to sports organizations, after two of his colleagues from the Sports Council (President Jovanka Radičević and Milan Tičić) withdrew from it, points out that even the federations are not "clean".
"It was known that we would end up in a position where there was a lack of money, but it must be said that almost all associations are dishonest when they write programs, because they "hairdress" the data, they do not show the real situation. All the alliances together asked for over nine million, and two and a half times less was available. Looking at the programs, we can say that they are cleverly written, someone would have done better, and not that they did a 'copy-paste' of one and the same program".
Dragović emphasizes that the Sports Council has wasted many years.
"I have been saying for a long time in sports circles that this kind of situation with money will occur, unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to do so at the Council meetings. The question is why COK and POK are in this category with the other federations, because they should be budget units, as the two best ambassadors of the country. And every year, a million is allocated for them - two-thirds to COK, one-third to COK. If a million cannot be found in the country for it, it has failed. Unions should receive money from line ministries. The council could have foreseen everything that was happening, but we did a bad job, we played dumb phones, made plans based on who was good with whom, who would help whom...".
The man who built the Montenegrin Paralympic Committee from scratch had a message for the end.
"Ministries, administrations, ministers, directors are changing... and the Council should have gotten out of politics and nonsense, because it is above all that and has power. Since 2017, no one has touched us, instead of using our strength and doing our work, we set out to solve something at five to 12. We hide behind fame, medals, fake work, and there is no quality work. It's like - let's take one side and see what happens. It's not sporty. It is a sporting thing not to be silent, because even when you lose, you extend your hand and tell your opponent that he is stronger. With all due respect, it was fairer to say that we didn't do well," concluded Dragović.
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