Skopje: Kometal quits

The most famous and popular women’s club in FYR Macedonia, former CL winner Kometal Gjorce Petrov will lose its main sponsor. The owner of the club, Trifun Kostovski, steps down from the presidency of the Macedonian Handball Federation. A week before start of new season, Trifun Kostovski announces his withdrawal from all handball sponsoring activities. The new president will be appointed on 25 October at the Ordinary Congress.

"We have been preparing for this step since last year start. We prepared materials to inform potential sponsors about the possibilities to get involved in the club management and offered marketing and advertising packages. But we fail to fulfill our mission. I don’t have the strength to follow the world trend: clubs with budgets of millions. The price of quality handballers has risen drastically and I could not pay these amounts. So I leave space for more ambitious businessmen who are willing to sponsor the club,” said Trifun Kostovski.

Kometal GP are in the Women’s Champion League in the group of Zvezda Zvenigorod, Győr and a team from the qualifications.

Successful years

Kostovski started sponsoring the team in 1993 after Gjorce Petrov have beaten Hypo, 20-16 in Skopje and Hypo won the return game by 31-15.

The first big success was reaching the CL final in 2000 against Hypo. After crowd disturbances, all FYR Macedonian clubs were banned from the European Cup competitions, but two years latter Kometal GP actually won the Champions League. In the same year, Kometal won the European Super Cup. Skopje played a third CL final in 2005, but lost to Slagelse.

There are no real rivals in the domestic championship. Kometal GP won 16 league titles in the last 16 years, while lost only one cup title in 1994.

Efforts of the management

The club’s managing board will contact all previous sponsors and they are trying to put together a budget of no less than 600 000 Euro.

"We will have a meeting with the players on Wednesday to inform them about the current situation. We'll ask for patience. I hope we'll solve our problems and will continue to work normally. It is a difficult situation,” said Ivan Bojkov, president of the club.

The club signed three new players so far: Sandra Bosnjak, Ana Krizanac from Croatia and Mirjeta Bajramovska, a FYR Macedonian national player. Together with these players, Kometal GP finished last at the Bad Urah preparation tournament in Germany, which was here the worst result of the club so far.