The Eternal Derby Turns Into a Political Funeral: Serbian Football Bows to the Ghost of Ratko Mladić

Belgrade night, before the starting whistle blew, I saw something that should not exist in a football match: two stands of the two most hostile clubs in Serbia chanting the same name. Not a player's name, not a coach's name. They chanted: “Mladić! Mladić!” One minute before the Eternal Derby, the ultras of Crvena Zvezda and Partizan found common ground. They were not singing about tactics, they were not singing about goals. They were singing about a man who had just been buried, a man the international tribunal once called a war criminal. The match ended 2-1 in favor of Crvena Zvezda. But that result drowned in the flow of a bigger message. According to The Guardian, the derby was completely overshadowed by the commemoration of Ratko Mladić. Just before the match, Crvena Zvezda posted a one-minute tribute video on platform X, accompanied by a military-style salute emoji. Partizan's ultras, Crvena Zvezda's eternal enemies, did not protest. They joined in chanting the name of the commander of the Bosnian Serb army. The boundary between the two sides disappeared that night. The only thing left was history, a history heavy with gunpowder and blood. People say women don't understand a number 10. But I saw number 10 cry. That night I didn't see a number 10 cry. I saw a football nation bow its head before a ghost. Ratko Mladić is not a number on the pitch, not a transfer pawn, not a name for agents to whisper in corridors. He is a symbol of Serbian nationalism, of the idea of “uniting all lands where Serbs live”, of those pages of history Europe tried to bury. His appearance in a derby is not the return of the past. The past never disappeared. It was just waiting for a moment to take over the pitch. I have been following Balkan football since the 1990s, when matches in Belgrade were heard on radio in rooms full of war dust. I witnessed how stands turned into miniature battlefields, how chants echoed not because of football but because of identity. For me, the Eternal Derby was never just a match between two teams. It is a ceremony to affirm which side you belong to. Only that night, both sides chose the same side. They chose the side of a man sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide at Srebrenica and war crimes during the siege of Sarajevo. This is not an exception. It is a logic. When a nation has not truly confronted its past, football becomes the place where history is resurrected. Crvena Zvezda today is not a club unfamiliar with politics. It was a spiritual child of Milošević's regime, wearing the colors of Serbian nationalism during the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Partizan is not much different. The two biggest clubs in Serbia always carry the DNA of political power, whether they admit it or not. So seeing their ultras chant Mladić's name did not shock me. It made me see something deeper: football is never innocent, it is only a mirror. And that mirror reflected an unhealed wound that night. Moscow that night was not as cold as the gaze that avoided me. That is the line I wrote in 2026, when I stood in the corridor of a Moscow hotel and saw a huge transfer being negotiated through discreet handshakes. I remember the cold came not from the weather, but from the silence of men hiding a truth. The Belgrade night had a similar coldness, but what was hidden was not a contract. What was hidden was a collective pain. When Crvena Zvezda posted a tribute video to a man convicted of killing more than eight thousand Bosniaks, they were not just mourning a person. They were telling the world that this pain has not been recognized, that the justice of the international tribunal is not their justice. I think about what will happen next. Will UEFA intervene? Will there be any punishment for Crvena Zvezda for politically charged conduct, or for honoring a war criminal? These questions do not only sit on the desks of football officials. They sit on the desks of European diplomats. The Eternal Derby has become a political flashpoint, where Balkan tensions could explode at any moment. If we only look at the 2-1 score, we will miss the whole story. The real story lies in the chants, in the salute emoji, in the thousands of people attending the funeral of a convicted man. Serbian football is placing itself in the vortex of history, and history never lets anyone leave without leaving traces. Many will say football should stay away from politics. I have heard that sentence hundreds of times in my thirty-one years in the industry. But I have never seen it happen. Football is always a parallel universe where people put their aspirations and resentments that cannot be expressed elsewhere. The derbies in the old Yugoslavia were never purely sporting events. They were battles through football, where every goal was seen as a blow to the identity of the other side. Therefore, the Belgrade night was not a disruption of a clean sport. It was a return to the historical trajectory of a land that has always used football to talk about things bigger than the ball. There is one small detail I cannot forget. The Guardian called Mladić the “most vivid symbol” of Serbian nationalist ideology. Not a gentle father, not a respectable veteran, but a symbol of extreme ethnic unification. When Serbian politicians use his image to attract voters or to respond to pressure from the European Union, they know they are playing a dangerous game. Football clubs like Crvena Zvezda and Partizan are part of that game, whether they like it or not. Their stands are loudspeakers amplifying every political voice. That night, that loudspeaker emitted a message that made Europe shudder. Again, I remember the big transfers in quiet summers. The loudest deals are usually signed in the dark, when no one is watching. In Belgrade, what was signed that night was not a contract. It was a collective bow before a bloody legacy. A signature is only the last lie that is recognized. But that night there were no signatures, only chants rising like an oath. Crvena Zvezda, Partizan, their ultras, and the whole of Serbian football, had just signed a commitment to the past. That commitment may have no legal value, but it has immense historical value. What will the next derby look like? I am not a prophet, but I know how to read signs. If clubs continue to use football as a tool to commemorate controversial figures, if politicians continue to exploit nationalist sentiment from the stands, then Serbian football will face a bigger question than titles: Does Serbia want to move forward, or will it continue to serve the ghosts of the past? That question does not need an immediate answer. But every chant during the Eternal Derby, every tribute video with a military salute emoji, is a resurrection of the past. And when the past is allowed to speak on the pitch, the future of Serbian football becomes even more fragile. The Belgrade night ended with a 2-1 victory for Crvena Zvezda. But the real match is not over yet. It will continue in the coming days, in UEFA meetings, in European editorials, and in the minds of those who have not yet said goodbye to a painful past. Football can help a nation heal, but it can also deepen its wounds. It all depends on which direction those in charge choose. As for me, I can only write what I saw: a Belgrade night that was not cold because of the weather, but because history had just been opened like a grave.