Genoa hooligan denies ties with mafia

20 October 2010 | 14:54 | Source: Večernje novosti

BELGRADE -- Ivan Bogdanov told Belgrade daily Večernje Novosti that he did not know any gangsters and that he would be better off if he was tried in Italy. Ivan Bogdanov “I didn’t take any money for what I did at the Luigi Ferraris Stadium. Especially not from some mobsters, drug-lords, as it is now speculated,” the leader of the Red Star FC supporter group told the daily in a statement from his Italian detention. “I don’t know any of the people they are linking me to. I’ve never even met them. If they had paid me EUR 200,000 do you think I would have traveled by bus and slept in a shabby one-star hotel,” he added. Bogdanov, nicknamed the Black Beast, was arrested last week in Genoa after causing unrest at a local stadium where Italy and Serbia were to play a EURO 2012 qualifier. “I’m only a Red Star fan. Nobody’s ‘player’ and nobody’s puppet. I already said why I did all that and apologized for it,” he said. “I had no idea that it would cause an international scandal and that I would be linked to mobsters and suspicious football managers. I repeat, that’s nonsense.” The hooligan could stay in the Italian prison for quite some time. But he says that he prefers that over being deported to Serbia. “I understand that the deal between the prosecution and defense will be hard to reach. In fact, it’s almost impossible,” Bogdanov stressed. “I think that I would get a much lighter sentence in Italy than in Serbia and a fair trial I cannot hope for there, in Belgrade. Besides, prisons are much more comfortable here,” concluded Bogdanov.