Faced With Ban, Red Star Belgrade Holding Fire Sale of Its Best Players

Faced with a worldwide sports ban, Yugoslavia’s champion soccer team, Red Star Belgrade, is selling its best players to survive.

United Nations sanctions, imposed last Saturday on the new, Serbian-dominated Yugoslavia, ban the country’s athletes from international competition.

The sports ban is part of a broad package of economic and diplomatic sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council to pressure Yugoslavia, now composed only of Serbia and Montenegro, to end its involvement in ethnic warfare in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina.

“We have to be realistic in this situation,” Dragan Dzajic, Red Star’s director, said. “If we cannot compete on the international scene, at least we should get something out of the funds we invested in these players.”

In anticipation of the sports ban, Red Star, the 1991 European champion, has already sold its best players. Midfielder Dejan Savicevic went to AC Milan, striker Darko Pancev went to Inter Milan and defender Miodrag Belodedic to Spain’s Valencia.