Terzić: A decade to be proud of, Zvezda will continue to win, win titles and grow as a club

Dear members of the Assembly, dear friends,

First of all, allow me to greet you and wish you successful work at today's session. I can say with particular pleasure that we once again met the basic strategic goals set by the club's Assembly.

The foundations of our strategy are: 

1. Sports results
2. Financial stability
3. Youth school
4. Infrastructure

We are aware of the high expectations of the star public and that past work in Red Star does not exist. After all, we ourselves raised the bar of expectations and accustomed the red and white army to victories, titles and daily successes. Accordingly, we want to take a step further and make each next season better than the previous one. There is no rest when making a mighty Red Star.

1. This year too, we won the double crown and showed absolute dominance in Serbian football. We have already secured the group stage of the Europa League, and at the end of August, the playoffs for the Champions League await us. We will do everything necessary to enter this season even better and more organized, and to repeat and surpass the results of the previous season.

When we look at the previous 10 years, we have to be extremely satisfied with the results we have achieved. We won eight championship titles, including seven in a row. On top of all that, we managed to win four double crowns in a row. The fact that we are breaking our own records speaks for how successful we are, which is the mark of true champions.

We have become regular participants in continental competitions, we have a total of eight group stages of UEFA competitions - 3 Champions League, 4 Europa League. At the end of August, we will find out whether it will be the fourth Champions League or the fifth Europa League.

When we started this journey in June 2014, Crvena zvezda was the 205th club in Europe on the UEFA ranking list. Today we can proudly say that we are consistently among the 40 best clubs in Europe. Now, in June 2024, Red Star is absolutely dominant when it comes to Serbia, while in Europe we are very competitive with eight years of continuity.

We want to win five new championship titles in the next five years and sew the fourth star on our club's coat of arms, which few clubs in Europe can boast of.

When it comes to Europe, we want the group stages of the Champions League or the Europa League every year, because only participating in the UEFA competition brings us the big income necessary for Crvena Zvezda to grow as a club.

2. Speaking about the finances for the previous year 2023, I can say that we finished in the positive, with a total income of 68 million euros.

In this current year, 2024, we have achieved an income of 55 million euros in the first six months and have thus already fulfilled the financial plan for the entire year.

The financial data for the previous 10 years are very clear and precise:

We had 373 million euros in revenue. Of that, 308 million euros are income from abroad, which makes up 83 percent of our total income.

In these ten years, we had 25 million euros in income from the public sector, and for the same period we had 42 million euros in taxes paid to the budget of the Republic of Serbia.

The average income for a period of 10 years is about 40 million euros per year.

We have created a financially self-sustaining system from Red Star.

Inherited debt to all financial institutions has been fully resolved.

In 2014, Crvena Zvezda had a debt of 64 million euros and an annual income of 8 million euros. This means that the club then had a debt equal to 8 of its annual income.

Today, the total debt of the club is drastically less than 1 annual income.

The financial indicators would be even better today if we had not suffered a financial loss in the range of 25 to 30 million euros due to the corona virus epidemic.

The corona virus pandemic has taken away our two-year planned income from tickets and transfers, and we have also been prevented from rematching for the Champions League after the draw in Cyprus with Omonia.

We started in 2014 from a club that was on the brink of bankruptcy, blockades, lost UEFA license, with over 100 lawsuits and many other unsolvable problems at that time. Perhaps the biggest problem of Crvena zvezda at that moment was that they did not have a team, most of the players left the club due to huge debts.

Currently the situation is as follows:

We have players whose market value today is 76 million euros.

This year, we expect a total income of over 70 million euros.

The largest share in the structure of our income comes from UEFA awards and player transfers (70 percent).

This is perhaps the biggest problem because these are variable incomes that directly depend on our sports results. Unfortunately, due to the environment and TV rights market in which we exist and work, this can hardly be changed.

In most clubs in Europe, the key sources of income are TV rights (which on average make up 40 percent of total income), sponsorships (30 percent) and tickets (30 percent), which are also secure fixed incomes.

In these first seven months of 2024, we have achieved record income from player transfers and we hope to reach an amount of around 40 million euros by the end of the year.

Gross wages and bonuses contribute up to 60 percent of the club's annual expenditure, which is within the financial recommendations of UEFA and in accordance with the practice of clubs that are considered financially disciplined.

For the first time, the auditors removed from their annual report the point that referred to warnings about the continuity and prospects of the club's operations. That change represents a confirmation by independent auditors that the club is financially stable and that there are solid foundations for preserving business and financial security and sustainability in the future.

The goal is to earn between 60 and 70 million euros per year in the coming years.

3. When it comes to the Youth School, great things have been done in the previous decade.

EUR 60 million in revenue was achieved from the sale of players from the Youth School, with an investment of EUR 30 million.

The number of national team players we have in the younger selections clearly shows how dominant we are.

We completely renovated the infrastructure for the Youth School.

We formed a B team and an elite group where twenty of our most talented boys train and live under special treatment.

At the moment, the situation is such that in January we realized transfers of our talents at record transfer amounts for such young players.

In the cadet national team of Serbia that played in the semi-finals of the European Championship, we had as many as 11 footballers who are the true value of our club.

The goal of our Youth School is the production and affirmation of young players with a further increase in income from their transfers, from which we expect an annual income of 12 to 15 million euros.

We also want the number of national team members in all junior selections to constantly grow.

4. In the previous 10 years, we invested a total of 11 million euros in infrastructure.

The stadium infrastructure was completely renovated, as well as the infrastructure of the entire training center of the first team and the Youth School.

A new modern building was built for the training of the first team and a medical block, and our first team players also got two new fields.

We are currently finishing new state-of-the-art fields for our Youth School with accompanying facilities.

And what is very important to emphasize, we financed all these infrastructure works from our current business without additional borrowing.

Finally, I want to thank all of you for your successful cooperation and sincere support during these 10 years with a firm promise that Crvena zvezda will continue to win, win titles and generally grow as a club.

Once again, many thanks!