Budućnost President Bošković: "We could have sold more than 15,000 tickets."
Against Györi Audi ETO KC on Sunday, Budućnost is playing the most important match in the club’s history. A two goal deficit from the Veszprém Arena gives a big chance to the Montenegrian champions to win this trophy for the first time and realise the dream of many generations of the club.
In this interview with ehfCL.com, President of Budućnost, Predrag Bošković, talks about the preparations for the Second Leg in the Morača Hall and and about his expectations for the last match in the EHF Women's Champions League 2011/12 season.
ehfCL.com: Budućnost have played lots of games in different European Cups, especially in the EHF Champions League. Your club has also won four trophies in European competitions; three times in the Cup Winners’ Cup and once in the EHF Cup. Is the EHF Women's Champions League Final also an organisational challenge for your club?
Predrag Bošković: For sure it's a big challenge for us in any aspect. But we are doing our best in close cooperation with EHF to present this EHF Women's Champions League Final as the best possible promotion of handball sport.
ehfCL.com: How are going the preparations for the Sunday’s game in the Morača Hall?
Predrag Bošković: It’s a normal preparation with higher demands. There will be additional security in and around the Morača Hall. All other things, more or less, are the same as for all our other matches in the EHF Women's Champions League.
ehfCL.com: The capacity of the Morača Hall is about 4,500 seats, and all the tickets have been sold or distributed. Lot of fans remain without a ticket. How big was the interest was for this game?
Predrag Bošković: First time since I have been President, we have this atmosphere around this Second Leg. We could sell more than 15,000 tickets for this game. There was such demand from spectators, our sponsors, other companies and institutions. Unfortunately, we could do have this capacity and have much less.
ehfCL.com: How did you see the first game in Veszprém Arena. What was your opinion aboutthe result and about the game played by both teams, especially Budućnost?
Predrag Bošković: We should have won that game. But if you miss five penalties against teams like Györi Audi ETO KC, than it’s too difficult to win the game. Still, we do have an active result which gives equal chances for both teams to win the trophy. And also gives possibilities for one more interesting game in Podgorica.
ehfCL.com: Do you believe that Budućnost can win the trophy, having this season finally qualified past the semi-finals of EHF Women's Champions League?
Predrag Bošković: Since I became President of the club, I strongly believed that Budućnost could and should win this trophy. The last two seasons we have been very close and on Sunday (13 May) we will see how far we can go. Budućnost as a club and it’s spectators deserve this.
ehfCL.com: Do you have a message for all those who are going to the Morača Hall on Sunday?
Predrag Bošković: I would like that any person in the hall, no matter what the final result is, to enjoy handball and show the respect towards the two best teams in Europe this season.
ehfCL.com: Given the results, continuously, in Europe in past few decades, Budućnost belongs to the cream of European handball. How difficult is for your club to cope with such challenges for years, in fierce competition with economically more powerful clubs?
Predrag Bošković: Buducnost is based on right pillars for over 30 years thanks to the people who were leading the club in the past. We are continuing to do that. It’s very difficult to compete us with the more richer clubs, but we are managing to do so even if our budget is much lower than theirs.
Thanks to our youth academy, every year we have players from our youth generations entering into the system of first team. This year there will be even more.
ehfCL.com: Bojana Popović and Maja Savić announced that they will stop playing at the end of this season. Is there any chance they will change their minds, have you talked with them about that?
Predrag Bošković: It’s their personal decision and nobody has no right to interfere in that. It is a waste of time and words about what is my personal wish and what is my opinion about two of them, since Bojana for years is the best player in the world and Maja is the best left-winger in the world. But, we will wait until the end of this season to hear their decision and it will be after the Olympic qualification tournament in Lyon.
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TEXT:
Saša Jončić