The criminal complaint filed by the basketball player reached the tabloid newspapers "like a three-pointer in the basket" and it is now widely copied and retold. A manhunt and a public trial were launched against certain Z. Š. and DB, whose full names and surnames, shortly after writing the portal, flooded social networks. However, during all that time, not a single journalist invited the people they target as "racketeers", "abusers of young talents" to hear the other side, as well as to find out which lawsuits and court proceedings preceded the criminal complaint filed by Smailagić. In the midst of public persecution, the other side of the story was presented to the weekly "Vreme" by the president and director of two basketball clubs from Kotež, who are also co-owners of the GBA basketball academy Zoran Škorić and Damir Bogućanin and their legal representative Đorđe Simić.
photo: sava radovanović / tanjug...
For the first time in the history of Serbian basketball, the path of a basketball player to the NBA league did not lead through Mega, Zvezda or Partizan, but it did not lead through other European clubs, nor through the NCAA league. For the first time in the history of basketball, the eighteen-year-old player Alen Smailagić moved from an environment such as the modest Belgrade settlement of Kotež directly to the NBA champion team.
"It is clear that someone has been tracing that path for years," Zoran Škorić, co-owner of the GBA basketball academy, told Vreme. "The player had individual and group training every day, he was provided with different trainers for different segments of the game, he was provided with gym and conditioning training, medical services and physical therapy, he visited camps, he was provided with special nutrition programs, a nutritionist, he was bought special sports equipment, it is ensured that some former legends of NBA basketball come to Kotež and watch him in the gym, and part of the improvement of the players are e.g. private lessons in English and mathematics were also mandatory."
Škorić continues: "Until now, we have opened the way for a large number of talented young players to the academic basketball of the United States of America and Europe. We have great relations with all of them and their families. The first and only time when there was a problem was this case with Alena, even though we were extremely close to him and his parents. Since Allen refused to fulfill his obligations under the contract, we just handed the case over to the lawyers and will accept the rulings of the competent authorities, whatever they may be. Not a single ugly word was ever spoken between us."
Legal representative Đorđe Simić, who participated in the signing of the contract with Smailagić, says that it is best for the public to refer to the entire case chronologically.
In August 2018, the player signs the Contract on career planning, organization of sports and personal development and improvement of the player, by which he accepts some obligations in relation to the one who enabled him to do the aforementioned years ago, but care was taken to sign the contract in different capacities: the player, the player's father and mother, his coach, club president and licensed FIBA agent.
In April 2019, the Contract on the professional engagement of players (employment contract) between Alen Smailagic and KK Beko Basketball Kotež was notarized before a public notary, and then it was duly registered before the relevant bodies of the KSS.
In July 2019, Alen Smailagić signed a contract with the team of the then NBA champions - Golden State Warriors for the amount of several million euros, and then in December of that year and January of the following year, Zoran Škorić visited Alen in America, as evidenced by joint photos.
In the spring of 2020, at the player's request, there was a need to expand that contract, which states that "the parties to the contract express their mutual satisfaction with the previous career planning, the organization of sports and personal development, as well as the training of the players", and that the parties to the contract then sign an annex "satisfied with the cooperation so far, confirming the fulfillment of the contractual obligations so far, and with the aim of providing the player with the best possible further basketball development and progress in his basketball career through the annexation of the contract."
The co-founder of the basketball academy, Zoran Škorić, says that the problems start only at the beginning of 2021, when Allen found certain advisors and suddenly decided to stop all communication with people with whom he had been in extremely cordial and friendly relations for years until that moment. Since the player refused to perform the contractual obligations, a dispute was initiated.
"At the end of 2021, a lawsuit was filed with the High Court in Belgrade, and later a proceeding was initiated before the international BAT arbitration in Geneva. Only in January 2022, in the response to the lawsuit, Smailagic's attorney presents the thesis that the player allegedly did not know what he signed and with whom," says lawyer Đorđe Simić.
The president of KK Beko Kotež, Damir Bogućanin, says that since then he only met Alena once, and that by chance, when the basketball courts were opened in Kotež. "That March 2022, when I met him by chance, we greeted each other cordially, without exchanging a single ugly word or look, and since then I have neither seen nor heard from him, nor have we exchanged messages."
As "Vreme" learns, Alen Smailagić filed a criminal complaint against Škorić and Bogućanin a few months after that meeting in July of the same year.
"In both proceedings, Smailagić claims that he did not know what he was signing or with whom," says lawyer Simić. "On the other hand, in front of the High Court, he has not responded to several calls, and this is an opportunity to resolve this situation legally, and not with media chases. In the courtroom, it would also be clarified whether anyone ever blackmailed him or said a bad word to him."
In the criminal report, Smailagic complains that Beko Basketball, not Beko Kotež, took the ransom. However, KK President Beko Kotež Bogućanin explains that these are two entities that are connected by several contracts and cooperate closely. When it comes to money, it is invested in the development of younger basketball categories. The interlocutors for "Vreme" say that all the media hype is offensive to say the least, and that's why they are announcing lawsuits, and that it became absurd when they started writing that "those two from Kotež cheated the Golden State Warriors", and this is a system that earns almost a billion dollars a year.
