January 3 – The city of Skopje in North Macedonia has committed €200,000 in financial assistance to local club Vardar Skopje, angering the capital city’s other top tier team, Shkupi, who are not being financially supported and say the actions of the Municipality of Skopje are discriminatory.
In a statement thanking the city for the support, FC Vardar wrote: “On behalf of the club, we thank the Mayor of Skopje Danela Arsovska, as well as all the advisors who unanimously brought and implemented the decision to grant financial assistance to the largest football club – FC Vardar. We express our gratitude to our loyal fan group ‘Komiti West’ which throughout the past period has worked tirelessly on the realization of the decision…
“This decision will undoubtedly have a positive impact, especially on the players, on the professional staff, but also on those who currently manage all things related to the club, and who, no matter what, will continue to perform their duties voluntarily.
“We believe the cooperation will continue in the coming period and will encourage all other social figures to join the fight for the people’s club.”
A few days later Shkupi respionded angrily with their own statement, saying: “We recently received the news that the City of Skopje offers financial assistance to football clubs from Skopje and we received this news with great pleasure and appreciate the fact that the City of Skopje helps and supports the clubs that represent the city, contributing to their further development.
“But what worries us and is not clear to us is the fact that FC Shkupi is the team that best represents the city in European competitions in the last five years. Despite the fact that we are a club that represents the country and not just the city, we are surprised why the City of Skopje did not see fit to allocate financial resources for our club. We ask if those who made this decision do not see Shkupi as part of the city of Skopje or as a football club from North Macedonia?
“We consider this attitude of the City of Skopje towards the citizens of the Chair and in general towards our club to be quite discriminatory… we want to tell those who made this decision that they should correct their mistakes as soon as possible. This discrimination brings only harm to everyone and no benefit. Everyone involved in this decision is responsible for this discrimination.”
Contact the writer of this story, Aleksander Krassimirov, at moc.l1735100176labto1735100176ofdlr1735100176owedi1735100176sni@o1735100176fni1735100176