Podgorica Mayor Saša Mujović urged the city to prioritise wider access to sport, free training opportunities for children and better facilities as the Capital City Assembly debated its 5.5 million euro sports allocation. The choice, he told the assembly, is whether city funding should focus on participation across all generations or on better results for professional clubs owned by the Capital City.
Mujović said every child should be able to train in a sport of their choice regardless of their parents’ financial circumstances. He favoured broader participation, while acknowledging arguments for and against both approaches. The city’s sports allocation was neither small nor large in itself, in his view: it was too little to make professional clubs competitive but enough to bring more people into sport.
Amateur sport and school clubs had received what the mayor called “crumbs” from the city budget. He called for a different allocation of funding, with investment in facilities and the removal of financial barriers to taking part. His stated aim was a mentally and physically healthy population through sport for people of all ages, rather than a focus on clubs’ immediate results.
Support should also go to local clubs including FK Kom, FK Zabjelo, FK Drezga and OFK Titograd, Mujović proposed, on condition that they provide free training times for children. He argued that city clubs’ results were often used for political purposes and that sport should not be judged only by short-term results, which could sometimes be “a pure fraud”.
Club funding and construction costs
The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) took a different position on professional clubs, arguing that the Capital City should let them use its sports facilities free of charge. Andrija Klikovac, head of the DPS council group, described the 5.5 million euro allocation as a “ridiculous figure” and called for an increase. He argued that either the government or the Capital City should take responsibility for financing professional sport.
Klikovac also proposed encouraging businesses to fund sport. As an alternative, he suggested changing the law so that part of corporate profit tax would go to clubs that meet their tax obligations instead of to the Tax Administration. He said his group had sent letters requesting tax inspections but had received no response.
On sports construction, Klikovac said 10 million euros would be allocated to cover an existing swimming pool and raised doubts about the tender. He alleged that Minister Adžović wanted a tender with no bidders so it could be repeated, allowing a consortium building health centres and schools to seek and win the contract at a higher price. He also asserted that the company due to carry out electrical work on the stadium’s east stand was already known, without naming it.
Klikovac compared the 45 million euro price of the CSK stadium, including an underground garage, with the 26 million euro cost of the east stand. The stand would have ten times fewer seats, according to his comparison. He questioned why the city would spend 10 million euros covering a pool he said had no parking, rather than build a new one at Ćemovsko polje.
Mujović responded by calling for an analysis of sports investment under the DPS and coalitions that previously governed Podgorica. He asked who had run the city over the previous 30 years and predicted that an analysis would show the difference in investment was “in our favour”. He also recalled that former mayor Miomir Mugoša had promised five swimming pools, adding that he could not see them.
The mayor opposed building a pool within the existing complex because the site was crowded. He preferred Zlatica, where he said little construction was taking place. On the east stand, he said the project would include underground garages and improvements to the surrounding stadium complex, and urged Klikovac not to base his political career on insinuations or accounts beginning “one person told me”.
Mujović also questioned whether banks’ money was preferable to “dirty money” from cigarette smuggling and other smuggling activities, which he said had supported sport and the economy to a substantial degree. Klikovac, for his part, said KK Budućnost received its most funding when Ivan Vuković was mayor and Duško Marković was prime minister, but zero euros when Olivera Injac was mayor and Milojko Spajić was finance minister.
Vesna Brajović, chief of the mayor’s cabinet, said FK Budućnost’s company payment cards had been used for breakfasts and travel. She gave no further details about the assertion.
School sport and city property
Several councillors supported shifting attention towards school or recreational sport. Mitar Vuković of the Democrats called for investment in school sports grounds and cited the reconstruction of Vojin Popović Primary School in Drezga as an example. He said the DPS had promised the east stand in 2010 but had not completed it, leaving citizens deceived.
Vladimir Bulatović, head of the DNP council group, described school sport as the most important part of the sector and said investment should start there. Recalling that people once waited for hours to play on school grounds, he said his group would support the strategic proposals. Srđan Perić, president of the Capital City Assembly, also backed amateur and recreational sport as the priority.
Adi Jakupović of the DPS said the cost of the east stand could have paid for two homes for older people, while acknowledging that his party had made a mistake by not building the stand. Drago Vučinić of the Movement for Podgorica called for help for FK Drezga, which he described as the only surviving club in a rural area.
Miloš Đuričković of the European Alliance argued that expanding participation was easier to achieve but should not come at the expense of developing professional sport. The city should not abandon one approach for the other, in his view.
Perić asked Sports Secretary Darko Nikčević whether athletes received M4 forms after their contracts ended and whether he had a position on a decision by the Agency for Prevention of Corruption concerning club financing. Nikčević said club representatives should answer the question about the forms. Based on what he had seen, he added, a European directive neither explicitly barred the city from owning a club nor specified how much it could finance one.
The assembly also discussed decisions on using city property for advertising. Its sitting was interrupted during debate on a European Alliance proposal to involve private investors in building public car parks. Brajović supported the idea of private participation but said the proposal needed legal revision; Đuričković accepted that point and said he would seek an amendment if they reached agreement.
Goran Mišković of the Europe Now Movement said his group had given the parking proposal a doubly negative opinion. The sitting was expected to resume on Monday, with no calendar date specified, leaving the proposed terms for private investment in public parking unresolved.
