Escobar opened suitcase full of money in front of Popovic, did not expect Red Star legend's response

Ilustracija: Nikola Jovanović Foto: MN Press/Wikipedia/Shutterstock

Red Star (Crvena Zvezda) fans learned some sad news this morning. They were left without one of the greatest legends of the club, Vladica Popovic, who passed away at the age of 86.

Vladica Popovic will forever be remembered as the man who took the Red Star to the roof of the world in Tokyo in 1991, when the red-and-whites won the title of the club world champions.

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Popovic was a player, coach and official of the Red Star Belgrade football club, who dedicated his whole life to the red-and-whites. As a player, he played 499 games for Red Star and scored 38 goals.

At the end of his playing career, he tried his hand as a coach and had an interesting career, during which many anecdotes were told, and the one from Colombia is especially interesting, having taken place at a time when the drug empire of Pablo Escobar was at its peak there.

Popovic himself described how in Colombia, where he headed local teams from 1971 until 1974, he had the opportunity to meet the famous drug boss Pablo Escobar, the master of life and death in Colombia at the time.

Popovic revealed that he and Pablo Escobar had whiskey in a pool, surrounded by incredible Colombian beauties. It was an attempt to convince Vladica Popovic to take over Atletico Nacional Medellin, a club Escobar controled from the shadows and through which he "laundered" the money earned from cocaine smuggling.

While in Colombia, Popovic won the national title twice - in 1971 with Independiente from Santa Fe and in 1974 with Deportivo from Cali. That was enough for Escobar to offer him a coaching job, because he wanted to make his Atletico Nacional a giant in South America.

Vladica Popovic; Photo: MN Press

However, Popovic was aware of what could happen if something went wrong, so he refused a suitcase full of money that Escobar opened in front of him.

"He took me to a beautiful villa with a pool, and there were women there like from a fairy tale. Seven or eight of them, you couldn't tell which one was more beautiful. Colombians are otherwise known for their beauty.

It is true that I knew him and that we saw each other several times. He wanted me to take over as the coach of his Atletico, but I immediately realized how that episode would end. He would chase me out of Colombia after two or three defeats, he did that to coaches on a regular basis.

I turned him down, even though he told me that I could take as much money as I wanted from him, just to take over the team. Believe me, we negotiated for several hours, but in the end I still rejected him," recalled Popovic, who pointed out that he had to think about his family and that because of that he turned down Escobar, who he said was agreeable during the negotiations.

Pablo Escobar; Printscreen: Youtube/Moises Villadiego

"We spoke in the pool over the whiskey. There I explained to him that I did not want to come and that there was no money that would make me take the job. I was simply aware of the situation, he would drive me away after a defeat, regardless of the fact that at that moment I was a big name there with results behind me. And who knows what else...

I just had to think about my family at that moment, I didn't want to make rush decisions. I was thinking about my wife Ljiljana, son Miodrag and daughter Jasmina. I was very polite throughout the conversation. He was not angry at any point, he was very pleasant and communicative all the time.

He told me I was making a big mistake, he even opened a suitcase full of money to prove to me how serious he was in his intentions. I replied that I would never take a single dollar more than what I would honestly earn. However, I could have easily asked for 15 thousand dollars a day, that would not have been a problem for him," Vladica Popovic said.

(Telegraf.rs)