Croats flooded the Canadian goalkeeper’s phone with abuse, they claim to be separatists

Borjan said that before the match against Croatia, which Canada ended up losing 1-4, someone published his phone number and his cell phone was flooded with more than two and a half thousand abusive messages. He was also often booed by opposing fans during the match.

The Canadian goalkeeper was born in the former Yugoslavia in the city of Knin, which is infamous as one of the first flashpoints of clashes between Serbs and Croats during the breakup of Yugoslavia. Knin is now in Croatia, but before the war there was a large Serbian minority and Borjan was born to Serbian parents.

Knin was also the capital of the so-called Republic of Serbian Krajina. The separatist state in the Croatian hinterland tried to secede from Croatia during the war and disappeared only after four years of fighting, when the Croats conquered Krajina as part of Operation Storm and over 200,000 Serbs fled or were expelled from the territory.

Borjan’s family lived in Knin until Operation Storm, when they fled to Belgrade and emigrated to Canada five years later.

Croatia fans at the stadium in Doha unfurled a banner with the inscription “Knin 95” and the postscript “Nothing runs like Borjan” on the logo of the tractor manufacturer John Deere. The images of Serbs in a hurry leaving Krajina on tractors and agricultural machines after the conquest of Croatian territory are well known.

“It shows how primitive they are. There is nothing to comment on. These people should focus on themselves and their families because they are obviously frustrated and have come to vent,” Borjan commented to Croatia fans after the match.

However, the goalkeeper had irritated the Croats earlier. Since 2017, he has been playing for Crvena zvezda Belgrade. That is, for the biggest Serbian club with a strong wing of Delije fans, which also includes ultra-nationalists.

Journalists asked Borjan what it’s like to represent Canada when he was born in Croatia. “It’s a big mistake. I would say that I was born in Serbia, in Dalmatia, but I feel like a Canadian because I spent a lot of years in this country,” he answered.

He thus indirectly signed up for the separatist Serbian Krajina. Photos of Borjan wearing a T-shirt with the name of this former state department are even circulating on the Internet. During the war, there was ethnic cleansing on both sides. First, the Serbian separatists expelled the Croats, after their defeat the Croats in turn expelled hundreds of thousands of Serbs who had historically lived in inner Croatia for centuries.

Anyway, lots of news and shouting of Croatian fans will probably have no effect. “I’m not going to deal with it any further. They’re kids who don’t know how it is and how it was, it says a lot about them,” said the Canadian goalkeeper, while also thanking his opponent for their support: “Thank you to the Croatian players, they behaved like gentlemen.”

Croatian forward Bruno Petkovič also defended him. “During my career I’ve been the target of opposition fans quite often myself and it’s not pleasant. It’s the flip side of football, you experience a lot,” he said.

FIFA announced on Tuesday that it had opened disciplinary proceedings against the Croatian federation over the incident.

Serbs fleeing Krajina on tractors: