By Dimitris Georgopoulos
The Bad Blue Boys, the group of Dynamo Zagreb’s neo-Nazi hooligans declaring ‘ready for anything’ have come to Greece for a football match and they attacked partisans of the opposite club, killing one and blessing many other people.
The incident provoked already a crisis in government as it did nothing to prevent it although it had prior information about the plans of the Croatian “football fans”. There is also a parallel and fierce conflict between two Greek oligarchs, who own antagonistic football clubs. Greek oligarchs tend more and more to resort to crime to solve differences, as Greece, crushed by the creditors, the EU and the IMF, is more and more resembling to the other more or less criminal Balkan states, born out of the collapse of the “really existing socialism”.
The dark history of the Bad Blue Boys
The wild incidents that unfolded in Nea Filadelfia on Monday night with a dead 29-year-old friend of AEK brought memories from the ’90s . The hardcore hooligans of Dinamo Zagreb, “Bad Blue Boys” who have a reputation for being ready for anything are known to participate in wild episodes and yesterday they had a leading role.
With clear references to the far-right and Nazism, The Bad Blue Boys, the main league of Dynamo Zagreb’s supporters, came to international prominence in 1990, when, after the first multi-party elections in Croatia, they massively supported Franjo Tuzman who engineered independence from then Yugoslavia.
May 13, 1990 will always be remembered for the riot that took place at the Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb between Bad Blue Boys, fans of Dinamo Zagreb, fans of Red Star Belgrade Delije and the police.
For many that day was the unwritten start of the Civil War.
The riot resulted in more than 60 people being injured, including some being stabbed, shot and poisoned by tear gas. The tension between the two teams was always high as they placed firmly at the top of the Yugoslav football league and often won the national championships.
However, that fight in Maximir never started. Several Dynamo players still remained on the pitch. Zvonimir Boban, the captain of the team and future captain of the Croatian national team, kicked Police Officer Refik Ahmetović who attacked a Dynamo fan. At the last minute, the Yugoslav police took out by helicopter the players of Asteras who had already left for the locker room.
The Bad Blue Boys immediately rushed to defend Boban, acting as bodyguards. For this act alone, Boban was declared a national hero of Croatia, but he also gained a bad reputation in the eyes of Serbs. He was expelled from the Yugoslav Football Federation for six months and charged with criminal charges, although the officer attacked – who turned out to be a Bosnian Muslim – publicly forgave him for his actions several years later.
The far right and neo-Nazism remained the driving force of the league as recorded both in stadiums and outside them. It is typical in 2008 for the appearance in a central part of Zagreb graffiti that trumpeted “death to journalists” with the signature of the BBB, even though they denied his paternity.
In Maximir fans of Dinamo Zagreb sing the slogan of Ustashi at a match of the national team against Norway in March 2015. UEFA penalised Croatia and played all of its subsequent competitive matches without a crowd and while it was fined 50,000 euros.
Croatian fans sing ” Za dom spremni”(“ready for the motherland”). They did so in a National match against Israel in March 2016. This incident prompted Efraim Zurov, head of the Nazi persecution movement, to criticize the practices of the Croatian government. He said that it is not allowed that this Government has not stopped fascist songs in stadiums and tolerates such behavior in favor of the Nazis and against Jews.
In 2018, in a police operation at the association’s offices, weapons, ammunition, batons, balaclavas and other items were found. It is noted that the decoration of the Association on the outside included graffiti with Adolf Hitler and the fascist Croatian leader of the Ustasi Ante Pavelić.
The Bad Blue Boys also maintain relations with organized fans of other teams such as Roma, Dinamo Kiev, Dinamo Tbilisi, Rapid Vienna and from Greece Panathinaikos and gate 13.
Much of the information about the Croatian club was taken from Bad Blue Boys: Οι νεοναζί χούλιγκαν της Ντιναμό Ζάγκρεμπ που δηλώνουν «έτοιμοι για όλα»
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