Rozic: “We Won’t Go to Podgorica,” ABA League Delays Opener
Buducnost’s Podgorica opener against Cibona was called off a day before the season was set to begin, as the ABA League and 63 referees clash over pay and a fake email address.
Instead of a packed Moraca Hall in Podgorica this Friday, word came Wednesday night that the game is off. Buducnost and Cibona were set to open the 2026/27 ABA League season on September 25, but the Zagreb club was told not to plan the trip to Montenegro.
Cibona sporting director Marin Rozic confirmed the news to reporters, though in two slightly different versions. Speaking to N1, he said:
“It’s true, we’re not traveling to Podgorica. The information is correct, the round has been postponed, we don’t know what happens next.”
B92 carried a slightly different phrasing of the same message:
“It’s correct, we’re not traveling to Podgorica. The round has been postponed, and we still don’t know how the situation will develop.”
Behind both versions sits the same dispute, a clash between the league and its referees over money. The 63 referees who worked ABA League games in past seasons asked, through a lawyer, for higher fees this season. The request was turned down, and league management offered to discuss it only at the next ABA League Assembly session. The referees rejected that proposal, which left the league unable to appoint officials for the first round.
To make matters worse, the ABA League opened a public call for new referees in the middle of the dispute. Fifty candidates applied, and refereeing committee chairman Miguel Angel Perez put together a list of 20 referees on Wednesday, September 23, and submitted it for approval. A few hours later, a new problem surfaced: some of those referees received messages from the address referees.abaleague@gmail.com discouraging them from taking the assignment. The league says the address was used without authorization, has no connection to its contracted staff, and has announced legal action and a claim for damages.
The ABA League published its statement on the matter at 00:22 on the night between September 23 and 24, just hours before news broke that the season’s first game was off. The league fields 20 clubs split into two groups of ten this season, and the opening round was also set to pair Zadar against Bosna in Friday’s other game, with Partizan hosting Ilirija and Crvena zvezda visiting Borac in Cacak on Saturday.
We reported a few days ago on five clubs pushing back against the league’s Presidency over this same referee dispute, and it now turns out that was not just sparring in press statements but the run up to an actual cancellation. According to Telegraf, some of the newly hired referees have already started backing out, and if the dispute is not resolved quickly, the league could run into a real scheduling problem, since clubs are juggling European and domestic competitions at the same time and open dates for makeup games are already scarce.
Money was not the only factor at play, however. By the league’s own figures, the per game fee for the ABA League’s first phase had already gone up, from €562.50 to €630. That was not enough to make the referees drop their demand, and ABA League and Partizan president Ostoja Mijailovic, who had earlier said there would be no postponements, is now looking at a canceled game and an open question of whether more will follow.
No new date has been set for Buducnost and Cibona. The season that was supposed to start Friday now hinges on how the referee dispute plays out, and on whether either side backs down before the cancellation spreads to the rest of the first round.
