Red Star Belgrade’s supporters renewed a controversy that has shadowed the club this season by unveiling a tifo depicting Ratko Mladic before Sunday’s 2-1 derby victory over Partizan. The display comes after UEFA imposed a €90,000 fine on Red Star earlier in the season, following a banner commemorating Mladic in a Europa League play-off last month, and keeps the club under international scrutiny.
The Story in Pictures
Mladic died in a United Nations prison in August. He was given a life sentence in 2017 for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity after courts found he orchestrated systematic attacks on the non-Serb population of Bosnia-Herzegovina during the 1992-95 wars. Prosecutors cited his role in the massacre of 8,000 men and boys at Srebrenica and a siege of Sarajevo in which more than 10,000 people died.
Red Star’s official social media accounts posted video showing the tifo and the teams observing a minute of silence, accompanied by a saluting emoji. The post attracted immediate reaction, including an obscenity from the official X account of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s national team. The episode follows thousands gathering at a Belgrade church for Mladic’s funeral on Monday, events the club and its supporters have linked to public commemoration.
The background to Mladic’s capture and prosecution is also part of the record cited around the display. After initial protection from Slobodan Milosevic, who later died while on trial for genocide, Mladic spent more than a decade as a fugitive before being discovered hiding in a remote farmhouse and taken into custody.
The tifo and the club’s amplification of it through official channels extend a pattern that has already cost Red Star a substantial UEFA penalty this season. The new incident is likely to sustain criticism from regional actors and observers who say glorification of convicted figures deepens wartime grievances.
