This football season, the symbol of the skull (death’s head, Totenkopf) used by Nazi units in the Second World War and whose display is prohibited at UEFA matches appears on the stands in Bijeljina. In the photographs from the stands, the faces of the “Radnik” fans are blurred, but research by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) reveals the identities of the members with tattoos of Nazi symbols.
Journalists first noticed the flag with a white skull on a blue background during a small soccer tournament in July, and since then this symbol has often appeared on the stands of the stadium in Bijeljina.
The fan group “Incident” from Bijeljina showed this flag several times on their social networks. In some photos where the faces are blacked out, a Totenkopf skull tattoo can be seen on the leg of one fan.
BIRN’s research now reveals that behind the masks that cover their faces and blacked-out pictures on social networks, there are fans of the “Radnik” Football Club, promoting symbols of the extreme right.
In addition to Totenkopf, one fan has a swastika tattooed on his chest, the most famous symbol used by the Nazis during the Holocaust in which more than six million Jews were killed.
The club from Bijeljina did not respond to BIRN’s inquiries about the reaction to showing Totenkopf.
Fans as an extended arm of the government
Branko Todorovic from the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, whose seat is in Bijeljina, says that football stadiums often become a stage for radical and extreme politics, with fan groups becoming an extended arm of political parties and sometimes institutions.
“I would say that we see that these fan groups act as an extended arm of certain power centers of certain policies and that their actions are certainly connected to certain broader and political or other goals of the power centers both here and in the region,” explained Todorovic, stating that fan groups have significant potential for various types of crime, Detektor reports.
