This is Vladimir Jovanovic, a Serbian coach who got fired because of Vladimir Putin

Photo: Instagram / vladimirktz9

An incredible and rather bizarre story was told by Serbian futsal coach Vladimir Jovanovic in an interview for the daily Kurir. While he was working in Estonia, Jovanovic experienced a huge problem, since he was fired because of a happy birthday message addressed to Vladimir Putin.

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During 2023, Vladimir Jovanovic was coaching the Viimsi Smsraha club in the said country.

"I got up at 9:30 am, I wake up and the first news I see on my laptop is that it's Vladimir Putin's birthday. If it was the fifth (news story), I probably wouldn't even have seen it, but it's on top. And I just copy that photo of him and write in Russian and Serbian, 'Happy birthday, my namesake, Serbs and Russians, brothers forever'. It was 10:30 when I posted it. Within ten minutes, chaos. I was friends on Facebook with the occasional captain of the team, one of the Stuf brothers," said Jovanovic, and continued:

"He was the third man in their BIA (domestic intelligence agency). Estonians have bad relations with Russians, so I received a message from him - 'Boss, why did you do this?' I didn't know what he was talking about, and he sent me a screenshot of my post and said - 'You know very well'. They fired me at 10:51, the president called me and said that people from the (Estonia futsal) Association had reacted. I thought Stuf had set me up, then I also thought the Association was following me (on Facebook).

In the end I realized that I was set up by the (club) president, who already owed me 5,500 euros, and according to the contract I was supposed to be in Estonia until 2025. I still had 14 months left on the contract and they could terminate it only if I did not fulfill my work obligations or if I made some mess, like got in a fight," Vladimir Jovanovic recounted his Estonian experience, and explained that he left the country within hours, afraid that he might get arrested.

(The caption to this recent Instagram post reads, "Although I know that Estonians would deport me like they did back then, I would again wish a happy birthday to the great Vladimir! SERBS AND RUSSIANS, BROTHERS FOREVER!!")

Jovanovic is otherwise a respected Serbian futsal coach with experience working in Finland, Estonia, Montenegro, Cyprus, and even Jordan. After leaving Estonia, he coached Nizhny Novgorod in Russia, then Torpedo, and in the end he did not get the promised job in one of the national teams.

He returned to Serbia last year and took over KMF Novi Pazar and became well-liked there. His club played in the semifinals of the Cup, and remained in the top tier competition.

He is currently coaching BSK Borca juniors.

As a futsal player, Jovanovic played for Konjarnik, Intermezzo and numerous other clubs... He is also known as a big fan of Red Star (Crvena Zvezda).

(Telegraf.rs)