Prime Minister Zoran Zaev met on Wednesday the players of HC Vardar, its management as well as officials of the Handball Federation of Macedonia.
HC Vardar won the European Championship title after beating Paris Saint-Germain at the VELUX EHF Champions League Final held in Koln.
On behalf of the government, Zaev awarded the handball players Plaques of Appreciation, the government said in a press release.
“On behalf of the citizens of Macedonia, thank you for the joy you have given us. Your achievement is an ambassador-like promotion of Macedonia, not only in Europe, but also all around the world. At the same time, your success is a motivation of the government to strongly support sport,” Zaev noted.
He announced opportunities for investment in sports, i.e. sport clubs, laws supporting sport as a profession and covering pension and health insurance for athletes.
In the meeting, issues facing sport clubs were discussed, such as financing and work conditions with the interlocutors also discussing ways to solve them.
The players, the club’s owner Sergey Samsonenko, and Zivko Mukaetov, head of the Handball Federation of Maceodnia, praised the commitment shown by Zaev and the new government to supporting sport in Macedonia.
The huge irony of this meeting is that the SDS through their mayor Andrej Zernovski has tried to make life miserable for the owner of Vardar, Sergej Samsonenko, by first not issuing building permits to build sport facilities and training centers, and when they eventually did, propaganda was launched through SDS owned media that the centers were not properly built and would collapse. Zaev is a self proclaimed fan of Shkendija, an arch rival of Vardar.
One can only imagine how awkward this meet up was between Zaev and Samsonenko.
