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Making a stand

Soccer stars join anti-NATO protest outside U.S. Embassy

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Posted: Tuesday March 30, 1999 10:31 AM

Mijatovic: "The Yugloslavs are being presented as the bad guys and we want to tell the world that that is not true." AP

MADRID, Spain (AP) -- Prominent Yugoslav soccer players signed to Spanish teams on Sunday joined a demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy in Madrid to protest NATO airstrikes on their homeland.

Among them Real Madrid striker Pedrag Mijatovic wrapped in a Yugoslav flag who said that he and his compatriots would not play "until our families emerge from their cellars," the private news agency Europa Press reported.

Earlier in the week Mijatovic had said he was in no condition to play, but rebutted talk of a boycott.

Since then the Yugoslav Federation has reportedly called on their nationals in the leagues of NATO countries to stay off the field, and several Yugoslav second division players did just that over the weekend. There was premier league this weekend.

Joining Mijatovic at Sunday's demonstration were four other premier division players -- Albert Nadj of Oviedo, Savo Milosevic of Zaragoza, Goran Djorovic of Celta and Slavisa Jokanovic of Tenerife.

"The Yugoslavs are being presented as the bad guys and we want to tell the world that that is not true," Jokanovic told the state-owned news agency Efe.

The protest was called by the United Left -- the only major Spanish political party to oppose NATO strikes on Yugoslavia.

 

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