"Fire everyone, shame, Transfer football money to basketball, Rent FFM building for office space, Convert Phillip II Arena into a basketball arena" these are just some of the comments by infuriated Macedonian fans on social networks in regards to the latest fiasco by the U17 Macedonian national football team which lost 10-0 in Serbia.
If political and business decisions influence the selection in the senior team, clueless players and sons of Macedonian businessmen get to play for the youth national teams. The terror of it all!!!
Long gone are the days when talented kids got to play for the national teams. If they are lucky, they simply leave Macedonia and we write about them on the news playing for Australia, Switzerland, Sweden...
The U17 primadonas embarassed the country in front of none other but UEFA's boss Michel Platini who was present to unveil the new stadium in Serbia. Right next to Platini was Macedonia's cancer to the game of football, Haralampie Hadziristevski who as the head of the FFM has managed to destroy Macedonia's reputation world wide.
Hadziristevski has been at the helm of the FFM for a decade. Well how does he do it, one would ask! Quite easily actually - He takes UEFA's money meant for investment in Macedonian football facilities and buys votes (hands cash) to each delegate in every city in the country. It's the reason why FFM has waisted millions of UEFA's money and they have never built anything. Instead of FFM, it's PM Gruevski Government and the Ministry for Youth and Sports who are building the stadiums and football fields across the country.
UEFA and FIFA's money had always ended up in the pockets of Hadziristevski, his VP Bexheti and the rest of the cronies at FFM. Even a German donation of 12,000 chairs which was supposed to be installed in Tetovo ended up being sold outside the country for profit. Where are the chairs in Tetovo? FFM's VP Bexheti & Sons are familiar with this transaction.
Things are no longer the same. Back in the day, when I wanted to tryout for the game, I showed up at FC Vardar and went for it. There were 50 kids that week. I made it through. They selected 20 of us. I paid nothing, in fact, they gave me cleats, equipment, shirts...everything. The rest of kids were told they were not good enough in somewhat brutal fashion compared to today's 'standards'. I remember coach Shulimcevski telling one of the kids's parents: "Don't bring your son here, he isn't good enough, maybe other sports" Harsh isn't it!?
The parents said nothing, appreciated the honesty and left.
Today, most clubs charge money to try-out and play. Depending on the club, the fee is between 20-50 euros/month. Businessmen bring their kids, regardless how terrible they are and if necessary they pay extra to the club and in miraculous fashion their son makes it to the first 11.
Fast forward, Serbia 10-0 Macedonia. It's not so surprising now, is it?
People in the FFM , particularly the types of VP Bexheti bring in their nephews, sons of friends etc and the next thing you know someone named Vizar Ganiu is a coach, while Fikret and his two cousins play defense for the youth team!!? There should be a law passed by Parliament banning this type of nonsense.
Everything about Macedonian football is utterly wrong. Many talented kids don't even get a chance to play. What family will give 50 euros/month so their kid will join a club? Clubs no longer have 15-20 youths practicing, they have 50-70 with all of them paying fees. Most of them aren't necessarily good, rather they can simply afford to play the game.
Incredibly, Hadziristevski is immune to all this. Losing to Luxembourg was no big deal, the idiot even explained the match is not fixed we are simply a very bad team. He also admitted coach Toshack has no idea what's happening and yes he has been given a list of very bad players to select from! Now with Serbia, in front of him... 10 goals, it's all normal. I am just waiting for a press conference in which Hadziristevski will explain to all of us that the match is not fixed, rather our team is just terrible. That explanation certainly makes everything all right!
No one knows a thing about the U17 team. We did an extensive research on the coach, even on the players... could not find a single piece of information on 7 of the 11 players. I even contacted a source in the FFM who confirmed Vizar Ganiu (the coach) is an absolute unknown, a nobody. Only Hadziristevski knows what qualified Ganiu to be a coach of a national football team. It can't be his cigarette selling skills at Bit Bazaar? Or can it? Hadziristevski does smoke after all.
The football league is in shambles. Matches are cancelled, nobody knows when will the second part of the season start. It was scheduled (by law) to start on March 7th, but a team close to FFM's VP Bexheti's was unable to make sure the snow is removed from their stadium, so they cancelled the season opening for everyone else! The Mak football league is a community league so we just go with the flow, no laws or rules apply. We'll start the season when we start it.
Macedonian football fans must put on their protesting hats, and bring the criminal FFM down once and for all! If not, we will see more basketball results for our national football teams. //Pero Stamatovski
