Partizan Sells Roganovic to Genk for 3.5 Million Euros
On the last day of Europe's transfer window, Partizan sold right back Milan Roganovic to Genk for 3,500,000 euros, five days before the derby, leaving the club without its top choice there.
The phones in Partizan’s Humska Street offices would not stop ringing on Tuesday evening. The last day of Europe’s summer transfer window tends to go that way: agents call until the final minute, clubs rewrite offers on the fly, and fans keep refreshing their screens to see whether their team will land reinforcements before a big match. That night, instead of a reinforcement, the opposite happened at Partizan. The club negotiated the departure of a player who, until the day before, had been undroppable on the right side of defense.
Transfer windows do not close at the same time everywhere. In Italy, France and Germany, the market shut at 8 p.m., in Spain at 11:59 p.m., and in England at the stroke of midnight. Partizan formally operates on Serbian deadlines, but the deal with Genk was struck right at that European finish line, on September 1.
Right back Milan Roganovic will continue his career in Belgium. Genk is paying 3,500,000 euros fixed for him, in three equal installments, with the contract also carrying bonuses of up to 500,000 euros, meaning Partizan’s total take could top 4,000,000 euros if every condition is met. During negotiations, the Belgrade club also secured a 10 percent cut of any future sale of Roganovic, the standard clause that keeps a club tied to a player even after he leaves.
This was not a quick deal. The story of Roganovic’s sale had been running since winter. CSKA Moscow were first on the scene, offering around 4,000,000 euros, but on terms Partizan did not like: 2,000,000 euros upfront for 50 percent of the player’s economic rights, with the rest due only in June. The club’s leadership turned that offer down. Greek side PAOK entered the picture later, but the pieces never fell into place there either. Roganovic stayed on, went through a stretch of inconsistent form, and only in the past few matches raised his level enough for Genk to decide to close the deal.
Roganovic came up through most of Partizan’s youth categories, and it was then-coach Igor Duljaj who brought him into the first team. Injuries slowed his early development, but over the past two seasons he had become a fixture in the starting lineup. He made 69 appearances for the black and whites and registered seven assists, and his status as a regular earned him a place in Montenegro’s senior national team as well.
Roganovic’s departure leaves Partizan in an awkward spot right before the eternal derby. At right back, the club is now left with Vukasin Djurdjevic as its only genuine option. In theory, Samson Nvulu could also fill in there, but he is already Partizan’s first-choice left back, so shifting him over would simply open a new hole on the opposite side of the defense. The coach will have to find a solution without a single training session to spare, with just five days left before the derby.
Roganovic is Partizan’s fourth major sale since March, and the numbers get more interesting once they are added up. Before him, Andrej Kostic left for AC Milan in Italy. One inaccuracy worth correcting here: Kostic did not arrive at Partizan as a free agent with no compensation paid, but was signed from Buducnost of Podgorica for around 1,000,000 euros. After Kostic came Vanja Dragojevic’s move to Rangers in Glasgow, worth 5,000,000 euros fixed, plus up to 500,000 euros in bonuses and a 10 percent sell-on cut. Third on the list was Ognjen Ugresic, sold to Greece’s PAOK for 6,000,000 euros fixed, with up to 1,500,000 euros in bonuses and a sell-on clause as high as 15 percent.
Add it all up, stripping out bonuses and percentages from future sales, and Partizan has earned 18,500,000 euros from these four players. That figure looks like solid business for a club with no European football this season, but there is a practical reason behind it too: these sales were needed for Partizan to work its way out of UEFA’s financial monitoring process and hold on to its European license. That burden had weighed on the club’s leadership since spring, and it has now, at least on paper, been lifted.
For supporters, what matters more is what comes next, on Sunday. Partizan and Red Star play the eternal derby on September 6 at 7 p.m., at Rajko Mitic stadium, in round eight of the Serbian SuperLiga. The black and whites go into that match without their first-choice right back, with fresh money in the bank, but also with a new hole in the lineup that the coach must patch in just a few days. In business terms, Partizan has done well for itself. Whether the same can be said after the derby depends on who Sasa Ilic, or whoever succeeds him on the bench, puts in that position on Sunday night.
