Brozovic, chorus and Nazi salute at the party of Croatia – Corriere.it

Forefinger and middle finger well extended, ring and little finger bent over and thumb pointing up: a gun mimicked with the hands that seems to shoot at the other. With background music and three unmistakable words: Za dom spremni (Ready for the Fatherland), the greeting used by the Nazi-fascist Ustasha movement during World War II (the equivalent of the better known Nazi Sieg Heil) and, later, during the war of independence in the early 1990s. There is a video circulating on the net, not the first in recent weeks, which portrays Inter Milan midfielder Marcelo Brozovic and Zenit St. Petersburg (ex-Liverpool) defender Dejan Lovren who thus celebrate third place at the World Cup in Qatar to the tune of the songs of the neo-Nazi group Thompson.

This is former @LFC defender Dejan Lovren & @Inter Milan player Marcelo Brozovic singing ?Za Dom Spremni? (For homeland – ready).

It?sa salute used during World War II by the Croatian fascist Usta?e movement. It was the Usta?e equivalent of the Nazi salute “Sieg heil”. https://t.co/tkoz4RjWmJ pic.twitter.com/xzGvh0wQjq

— Smajo Be?o (@SmajoBeso) December 19, 2022

Not new, it was said, because already on the eve of the semifinal against Argentina, the whole Croatian delegation to the World Cup in Qatar had ended up in the eye of the storm for another video showing players and staff celebrating the victory in the quarterfinals against Brazil with songs by the same band whose lyrics are full of neo-Nazi references. In fact, that za dom spremni is the incipit of one of Thompson’s songspseudonym of Marko Perkovic and frontman of the homonymous band, known at home for the extreme positions and for the annual participation in the celebrations for the Victory Day (August 5, when the end of Serbian autonomy in Krajina is celebrated) in Cavoglave, his hometown.

The greeting Za dom spremni, established by the Ustashe in 1941 and taken over by far-right paramilitary groups during the Croatian War of Independence — like the Roman salute in Italy — been prohibited by law, so much so that even the Constitutional Court of Croatia ruled on the issue, framing it as a crime against public order and for incitement to hatred. So much so that, in 2013, Josip Simunic (defender of the national team, for a long time at Hertha Berlin, and now coach of the national youth teams) had been sentenced precisely for inciting hatred based on racial, ethnic and religious grounds, as the salute is a manifestation of racist ideology. Decision shared by the Higher Criminal Court of Croatia which ruled that those who use it express unacceptable political ideas, on which the Republic of Croatia as a democratic country is not based. Simunic, during the celebrations for the qualification for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, arring the crowd with the Ustascia salute and for this he was fined 3,200 euros by his federation, disqualified for 10 days by Fifa and forced to miss the entire world expedition. He appealed for the reduction of the disqualification but, a few months later, Fifa rejected him and added a further fine of around 30,000 euros.