Nikola Prkacin leaves Cibona in frustration

Nikola Prkacin, sports director of Adriatic league team KK Cibona from Croatia, has taken a leave of absence for “private reasons”. This is the official version. The official version also says that Nikola Prkacin will hopefully be back on the job within two or three weeks. However, many insiders doubt that. They don’t think that Prkacin will come back at all, nor that he has left because of “private reasons”. Sources close to Prkacin claim that he has been very frustrated for several months with how things are handled within the club. He is especially frustrated about the fact that Cibona has not kept the promise to pay off previous debts to current and past players.

Prkacin is currently the only former player on the board of the club and he has been unhappy with many things since the summer.

As a player, Nikola Prkacin had a great career. The 208 cm Prkacin (1975) started with KK Split but then spent five seasons in a row for Cibona and after that also played in Turkey, Greece and Russia. He was a member of the Croatian National team and participated in the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing.

As a sports director he made headlines after last season’s play off game vs Cedevita, when he hit and knocked down ex-player Sinisa Kelecevic.

KK Cibona has made the headlines several times this season. First, there was their 0-6 record in the Eurocup which set a record breaking losing streak of 22 games in international cup competition.

Second, there was the never ending stories about the financial difficulties of the club, and third there were the many personnel changes (Americans coming and going and head coach Vrankovic leaving). One of those was the signing of Europe’s biggest talent, Dario Šarić, which raised many eyebrows. Especially around the question who would pay the € 550.000 transfer fee for him. If Cibona could find somebody to put that kind of money on the table, then why couldn’t they also take care of their debts to current and past players?

KK Cibona, two time European champion in 1985 and 1986, is currently third from the bottom in the Adriatic league with a 6-10 record.