Zvonimir Boban and a history of sticking it to The Man
Zvonimir Boban isn’t known for kowtowing in the face of despotic authority, as Football Daily readers of a certain age will remember all too well. In 1990, as the 21-year-old skipper of Dinamo Zagreb, he infamously got involved in a pre-match riot between supporters of his own team and those of Red Star Belgrade, after spotting a policeman getting heavy-handed with a Dinamo fan on the pitch. In full kit and on live TV, Boban flattened the officer with a flying kick in an act of violence that is credited as a spark that would light the fire of Croatian independence, declared just over a year later. “I don’t regret it at all,” Boban said in an interview with the Financial Times in 2021. “It was a fight for freedom against the regime,” added the man who claims not to like talking about the famous kick, but is always amenable to fielding questions from interviewers who feel not asking about it would be akin to quizzing Neil Armstrong about his life’s work and not mentioning the moon.
Having long since swapped the kits of Dinamo, Milan and Croatia for the well-tailored suits of the dashing middle-aged football administrator about town, Boban today made headlines on the back of a considerably more peaceful act of rebellion. In an open letter to the Croatian media outlet Telegram, he announced his resignation from his cushy gig as Uefa’s chief of football over a proposal to change the governing body’s statutes so the president, Aleksander Ceferin, can stay beyond a third term. It should go without saying that said statutes were introduced by Ceferin, at a time when the scheduled 2027 end of his third term was a lot further away. While
Football Daily wouldn’t dream of suggesting the Slovenian has turned into a power-hungry megalomaniac in the intervening years, the fact that his Fifa counterpart, Gianni Infantino, pulled a similar stroke when it came to diluting term limit rules probably tells you all you need to know.
“I talked to Uefa’s president about a problem that occurred during the last meeting of the executive committee in Hamburg – the proposal to change Uefa’s statute in order to enable Ceferin’s new candidacy after his final mandate runs out,” wrote Boban, who is – or was – very good pals with the Uefa’s president. “After expressing my deepest concern and complete disagreement with the proposal itself, the president answered that he sees no legal or moral-ethical problem in it – and that he will, without any doubt, proceed with this idea that I find fatal.” To cut a rather long-winded letter short: Boban has resigned, having specifically said that he’s “not pretending to be any sort of hero” and knows “that many others have the same opinion [as me]”. While Ceferin will be relieved that Boban showcased his disapproval of the latest power-flex to displease him more peacefully than his younger incarnation, it is the exact number of “others” that will give Uefa’s president a serious headache.
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