The banner at the Red Star Belgrade-Olympiakos match last Friday. Photo: Beta/Branislav Bozic

Euroleague Basketball, which runs the Euroleague competition, said on Tuesday that it has launched disciplinary proceedings against the Red Star Belgrade basketball club after the racist banner was raised by some fans at a match against Olympiakos of Greece last Friday in the Serbian capital.

The fans’ banner carried the message: “Albanians, Croats and Muslims are not my brothers.”

The fans displayed the banner at the match because Red Star’s new player, Alen Omic, is a Bosniak from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

However other fans condemned the incident and showed their support for Omic by applauding him.

Omic, who didn’t reacted to the insult during the match itself, posted a message on Instagram afterwards: “Whoever plays for Red Star and is their fan is my brother forever,” he wrote.

Euroleague Basketball also condemned the banner.

“Euroleague Basketball wishes to clarify the following: the message displayed by a minority of fans in no way represents either the sport of basketball, the European basketball family or the Euroleague Basketball organisation at any level,” it said in a statement on its official website.

It added that European basketball has always been and will continue being an example of integration on and off the court, “where cultures, races and religions have always come together sharing one common passion”.

“A disciplinary proceeding has been opened by Euroleague Basketball against the club,” it stated.

Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said on Monday that she was ashamed of the message the fans sent to Omic.

“I think that Serbia is not a country in which it is important what nationality [ethnicity] you are and where you come from and that this gave a bad picture of the sport. I am ashamed of such placards and banners and I do not think that this is a true picture of Serbia and our sport,” Brnabic said, according to Tanjug news agency.

But Sasa Djordjevic from the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy said Brnabic was ignoring other such incidents: “If it is not [a true picture of Serbian sport], why is it that the question arises so frequently?” Djordjevic asked.

The Serbian authorities set up the National Council for the Prevention of Negative Incidents in Sport at the start of December last year in response to a series of controversies involving fans at Serbian football and basketball matches.

“I hope that it [the Council] will do its best so that in a few months we can say that we have made progress because Serbia wants to cultivate sport in its schools, in its amateur sports clubs and in first-class professional clubs,” Serbian Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic said at the time, Vecernje novosti reported.

But Djordjevic argued that after a “pompous announcement”, the council has done nothing, while “negative phenomena” in sport have continued.

He cited the violence at the football derby between Red Star and its rival Partizan Belgrade on December 13, when police arrested 26 people.

“That is why the question should logically be asked, ‘What the council is doing and how do they want to solve the problems of violent sports incidents and nationalist narratives in sports?’” Djordjevic said.