After just a few months, Hajduk Split fired sports director Nikola Kalinic. He has now launched into an all-round attack and verbally lashed out
Alongside Dinamo Zagreb, Hajduk Split is probably the most renowned club in Croatia and has an extremely prominent coach in Gennaro Gattuso. Another big name was brought on board at the end of May in the form of Kalinic, a former international (42 caps for Croatia) with enormous international experience (147 Serie A games for Florence, Milan, AS Roma and Hellas Verona, 44 Premier League games for Blackburn Rovers and 17 La Liga games for Atletico Madrid), who started and then ended his career in Split.
The deal apparently turned out to be a misunderstanding, with the official statement saying that the separation was “the best thing for the club at this time”. If you look at the Dalmatians’ transfer balance sheet this summer, it is noticeable that well-known names such as Laszlo Kleinheisler, Ivan Perisic and Josip Brekalo left the club – all three had played on loan in Split. The only income was generated by the sale of Emir Sahiti to HSV – the deal is said to have brought in 1.5 million for the Croatian
Bringing old stars back to their former glory?
Adequate replacements were not really brought in. However, Ivan Rakitic (36), one of the most successful Croatian internationals in history, was brought in to spend his footballing autumn in the second-tier Croatian league and now help lead the club back to its former glory – Hajduk’s last championship was almost 20 years ago. Whether this wish will be fulfilled remains doubtful, to say the least.
The club is apparently in financial difficulties, which is probably one of the reasons why they are trying to consolidate. “The coach hasn’t spoken to the president for a month because he hasn’t received any reinforcements,” explained Kalinic at a sensational press conference. He does not see president Ivan Bilic as the main culprit for the misery in Split. He was “not a soccer man” and had only come “to cut costs.”
Sharp criticism of the supervisory board
Kalinic is more concerned about the supervisory board. “The people who run Hajduk have no idea about Hajduk – I’m thinking of the supervisory board. They neither love the club nor do they know anything about soccer,” he grumbled, saying that he knew after just seven days in office ‘that things weren’t going in the right direction here’.
He complained about the decision-making structures at the club and was quite clear about this. “The processes take too long, too many people make decisions. There are too many parasites in the club and Hajduk will not move forward like this,” said Kalinic, noting that Hajduk is a club ‘that 70 per cent of people in Croatia cheer for’, but which is ‘run in an amateurish way.’
The big problem child money
Split can hardly make any significant financial leaps, which is why Kalinic was annoyed that an offer of seven million euros for the US-American Rokas Pukstas (20) from Parma was rejected. “They were expecting ten million, but that was the only offer apart from the one for Sahiti. I’m not a magician, the prices of the players have fallen,” explained the now-dismissed sporting director, revealing that new additions were not even on the table. “What reinforcements? We don’t even have enough money to pay salaries in the next two months,” he was told.
According to Kalinic, the club is currently living on credit. “Loans have been taken out and they will do that again.” This is another reason why he was asked to find “sponsors for player transfers”. “But that wasn’t my job at all, my job was to talk to the players and convince them to come to Hajduk. “
Goals were not met
Kalinic does not have high hopes that anything will change soon. “They will bring in a new sporting director and then everything will continue as usual.” Meanwhile, president Bilic commented on the accusations in the evening and explained that the decision to sack Kalinic was his alone and that he did so because the sporting director “did not meet targets”. He also said that Kalinic had “crossed boundaries – human and professional” with his comments.
