Published in Nacional number 353, 2002-08-21

 

Nacional reveals how the mafia sold Olić

How did Marić sell Olić?

Vjeko Čuljak forced Olić’s manager Marić into the trunk of his car and drove him around the town, before forcing a gun in his mouth and ordering him to immediately sell Olić to Dinamo

One day prior to the sensational transfer, on the morning of Monday August 12, Vjeko Čuljak, owner of a security company, forced Dragan Marić, president of Marsonija, into the trunk of his car and drove him around the town before throwing him out on the football field of the Trnje football club. Here, Marić, with a pistol in his mouth, committed to trading his player to Dinamo from Zagreb and not to Hajduk from Split. From that moment to the time the contract was signed, Marić was under constant “protection”. Further, Čuljak personally controlled the most important round of negotiations, which took place in the restaurant “Hole in One Pub”, where Dragan Marić accepted to final legal-financial deal with Zdravko Mamić, Dinamo vice-president and Ivica Papež, owner of The Best.

The mafia in football The decision to transfer Ivica Olić from Marsonija to Dinamo was made by the Zagreb underground. All the rest was simply a show for the sports pages in the daily papersAt the game between Dinamo and Slaven Belupo, which started one hour late, Marić sat next to one of the Gucić sons, while four of Čuljak’s men continued their vigil over him.

Later in reconstructing the meetings and negotiations which prove the long lasting process of diplomatically convincing Marić, journalists made no mention of the meeting in the Hole in One Pub. Obviously, the most important episode was to have remained strictly “confidential” business.

Fast growing debts

For some time, Marić has been 200,000 DEM in debt to Čuljak, or to one of his “clients”. As he told all his creditors, he promised that their “investment” would pay off, increased by interest, as soon as he sold off Olić. He announced that he would receive millions for his player on the international football market, and with those announcements he borrowed money from known and unknown loansharks, brokers, alleged businessmen, football managers and even proven criminals, until his debt climbed to some €12 million with the fast accumulating interest. Marić even promised them ownership rights on Olić’s feet, and a split of the profits from his sale. It soon was shown, however, that the foreign clubs were not willing to spend as much as Marić was asking and after a two year search for a quick profit, he was left only with the very humble Croatian football market.

The last few weeks have passed with Marić’s negotiations first with Dinamo from Zagreb, then with Hajduk from Split, it quickly became clear that Marić’s public and secret financial commitments were several times greater than Olić’s potential selling price. Some, obviously, settled for the fact that they had been played. Others, connected to the underground, decided to bring the story to a typical close.

In driving Marić around in the trunk of his car, Vjeko Čuljak extorted triple rights to the creditors’ championships in capitalizing on Olić’s feet: he cut the competition with the other club which was stretching out into infinity, bringing no one financial benefits, he won over an impressive bargaining position with the Dinamo administration and he achieved the absolute priority in collecting his debts as soon as Marić received the first of his earnings.

Čuljak and Štimac

The contract was finalized, to Dinamo’s triumph, on Tuesday August 13, and was not nearly the honest deal that the management of the Zagreb based teams and his fans have presented. In fact the opposite is true, as the last day of talks were difficult for both sides, though it was kept quiet that one of the main actors was a “security” guard, one who secured his power in the American Bar of the Sheraton Hotel with beatings and who “protected” Igor Štimac’s betting shops from the competition and who worked closely with Vjeko Sliško. In recent months, Štimac and Čuljak, however, have not been close business partners. Following an argument concerning a financial issue, the Zagreb underground claim that this shattered partnership is the second cause for Čuljak’s intervention in the “Olić case”. To recall, Štimac is also a Hajduk official, and thus Čuljak’s favoritization of the Zagreb club also has tones of revenge to it.

True, the Dinamo management did not necessarily know about what was going on: the demonstration of Čuljak’s mafia techniques, theoretically could have unfolded as one of Marić’s private problems with an illegal “investor”. However, if the story about the trunk and the gun have spread through domestic sports circles, then it is hard to believe that it has not reached the ears of the Dinamo management.

The Hole in One Pub

According to Nacional’s source, the meeting in the Hole in One Pub was actually a late lunch meeting. The group met from 7-9 p.m., and first to arrive was Dinamo representative Ivica Papež, candidate for the team’s sports director. Following his early morning adventure on the Trnje turf, Marić arrived accompanied by Vjeko Čuljak and a certain Damir, an employee of the same “security” company. These four men then took their positions as equal negotiators at one of the restaurant’s round tables.

Mamić arrives somewhat later, accompanied by Andrej Maksimović, editor in chief of OTV.

Once those present were informed that Čuljak was one of Marić’s greatest creditors who also would participate in Olić’s fate, the “security” guards fell quiet. The meeting was opened with opposing proposals. Mamić supported the variation of selling Olić, while Marić, in his old style, offered Olić on loan. After two hours of tactics and bargaining, a compromise solution was found, however, one which is unknown to the tradition of football negotiations. The final contract would be signed the next day, and Olić was to be neither sold nor borrowed, but instead presented to Dinamo in return for a two year loan. According to the same deal, in return for Olić, Dinamo would give the club Marsonija €1.5m, and Dinamo would have the rights to independently offer Olić on the foreign market. Marsonija would receive a portion of the profits from such a sale, while returning the loan to Dinamo, with 15% interest.

Marić kept changing his mind. He would accept the compromise solution, and then reject it. “No, that won’t work, I will only consider a loan…” Near the end of the meeting, he asked for one more day to think things over, and it would appear that he was counting on getting a better bargaining position after a new meeting with the Hajduk officials who were to arrive in Zagreb the following day. However, all those present knew what Marić was up to, and Mamić and Papež insisted that the deal be closed immediately or there would be no deal at all. In addition, Marić had already given his promise to Čuljak after being threatened with his gun.

Before the group split up, the defeated Marsonija president called Doris Košta, the grey eminence of the Hajduk administration. Judging by the expression on his face, as witnesses claim, it could be concluded that furious Košta hung up on Marić in mid sentence, while he was explaining the situation.

Contract without precedent

Marić, Čuljak and the “security guard” Damir left the locale the same way they came in, as an inseparable threesome. Papež was the last two leave, waiting for the check. What followed is public knowledge: simply the technical details which completely defined the deal which had already been sealed on Sunday, on the Trnje field. The official contract was put together by attorney Marijan Hanžeković, the contract was then forwarded to the Croatian Football Association, and the loan deposited to the Marsonija accounts. Everything was even fairly taxes, Dinamo will tell the public, certainly claiming that they had no idea of what had gone on earlier between Marić and Čuljak.

The fans and the press will accept the same hypocritical story, keeping quiet about what became clearly visible in the case of the Olić transfer: that since politics has moved away from the clubs, transfers and rigging goals, football has become a breeding ground for the mafia and money laundering. Čuljak certainly is not the only one.

This is why all the actors in the game have done extremely well: Dinamo has grabbed the famous goal getter without spending a single penny, Olić has become a member of the football club he has always idolized, and some of Marić’s creditors – or at least they hope – have received greater security in their “investment”. Some have claimed that Olić would be worth much less on the international football market had he gone to Hajduk, as the Split club is less of a “name brand” than Dinamo in European terms.

The only loser, it would seem, is the manager himself from Slavonski Brod who, in overestimating his own abilities, got in too deep in the dangerous game with the underground “investors”. However, that was not too difficult to foresee.

Ivica Olić

The saga began in 1999, when Olić, as a young player for the Berlin team Herthe, was unsatisfied with his status and he accepted the sponsorship of the Marsonija president. Only formally, he became one of that team’s players. Considering Marić’s conduct and his public statements, there was surely a private deal in the works as well. In any case, Marić did not complain when the press presented him as Olić’s personal manager.

At that time, Marić still enjoyed a great deal of influence. Without any particular talent or reason, he was put into the category of HDZers who were given the role of capitalist to play. This is how he became owner of several formerly state owned glass factories which, following the post-war renovations, had an excellent market.

Considering that the role of capitalist requires a certain amount of business talent, the companies “Staklo Zagreb” and “Staklo Slavonski Brod” ended up in bankruptcy, even before the majority owner succeeded in paying out the small shareholders from whom he had bought his ownership and management rights. Today, those small shareholders have launched criminal proceedings against him. With this, the title of president of a second league football club from Slavonski Brod became the final trophy in Marić’s social prestige and his only potential capital was the absolute ownership rights over Olić. Indeed, he paid an extremely high price for this, one way above his capabilities: he paid 1.08million DEM for Olić’s Berlin contract.

Considering that he did not have this much money, he found a debt in his illegal accounting which could then only grow. However, the young football player played an even higher price: he became a slave expected to keep quiet and score goals wherever he was sent.

Olić on loan

Thanks to his financial difficulties, Marić invented a novelty in the domestic sector of football management, an innovation without precedent in world football history. He tried to sell the same player several times, claiming to put him “on loan”. As such, Olić was sent to NK Zagreb on loan for one year. It was never found out just how much of the “rent” was paid into the legal accounts of his home club and just how much went into his manager’s pockets. The problem could become even more complicated if anyone were to think it odd that Marić is both the club president and the private owner of the player belonging to that club.

In any case, Olić became a star as a temporary player for NK Zagreb. As such, he was invited to play on the Croatian National Team at the recent World Cup, where he scored one of the two goals in the game against Italy. At that moment, Marić began to believe that he was holding a piece of priceless capital in his hands, which would allow him not only to pay down his old debts, but also to take out new ones. The press grabbed up the bait, and citing Marić’s amazing claims that several European clubs were after Olić, and the only problem was – how to choose.

“Olić’s price is €10 million, and he will be transferred to the club which offers that amount,” he commented for Nacional in July of this year, only one month before he was forced to settle for a loan ten times smaller than that figure.

Of course, all of the “investors” tried to push there way around, since Marić had even promised those who had given him the most money that they could have ownership rights over Ivica Olić, and thus a cut of the profits. Three such creditors are publicly known. A certain Steven Firth from Great Britain, according to his own claims, paid Marić £600,000, believing that this gave him the rights to 50% of Olić. Reno Sinovčić, former fisherman and today a wealthy man and football referee who participated in the rigged 1999 football championships, has also demanded 50%. Miroslav Marčinković, president of NK Zagreb, gave Marić 1.8 million DEM, and allegedly would be happy just to get his money back.

Proof that this list of creditors is not complete was shown with the surprise appearance of Vjeko Čuljak when the bargaining had come down to only two domestic clubs. As such, the underground powers decided resolutely that Olić would play for Dinamo. However, as this will not help the creditors in collecting on their dues, the fate of Dragan Marić will not become an interesting story.

Vjeko Čuljak:
Protecting cafes and betting shops, blackmail and loansharking

The media first heard of Vjeko Čuljak in 1991 in the most difficult period of the Patriotic War: he was presented as a hero, a member of the so-called yellow ants, which defended Vukovar on the Trpinj road, later proclaimed to be the “Serbian tank graveyard”. Čuljak was one of the three ‘yellow ants’ who survived the defense and fall of Vukovar, but he lost his leg in the battle. The hero of the Patriotic War transformed into a “security” guard in 1993 in destroyed Vinkovci when he offered security to all the cafes in town. He came to Zagreb in 1999 with a number of former Vukovar defenders unable to come to terms with life in peacetime. Here he became an ally of Vjeko Sliško, murder ‘King of the Poker Machines’ and Vinko Žuljević Klic, who today is in prison for murder. Čuljak’s most well known operation took place in early 2000, when he forced out the “security” competition out of the Sheraton’s American Bar. Later he succeeded in receiving a license for a legal security company, and Čuljak was hired by Igor Štimac to protect the latter’s chain of betting shops. His involvement in the Olić transfer proves his involvement in blackmail and loansharking.

Dragan Marić’s bad call:
Olić’s manager in deep debt from the loanshark

Dragan Marić, is the president of NK Marsonija who got rich during the HDZ years off the production and sale of glass. Marić is an unthinkable combination in European football: club official and private manager. Though he paid 1.3 million DEM for Olić’s Berlin contract, Marić today would be a wealthy man had he not gotten involved in “combinations” with loansharkers. This summer, Juventus and Roma were prepared to pay some €5 million for Olić. Pressured, however, by massive debt, Marić was forced to ask for three times as much. Considering that Rivaldo was transferred from Barcelona to Milan for €4.5 million, seeking €10 million for Olić seemed a bad call which – in Balkan business circles – ends up in the trunk of a mafioso’s car.

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