Original article (in Serbian) was published on 01/04/2023
Petar Puaca is a former football player who has been exaggerating his biography in public appearances for years. He brags about how he played in the strongest leagues for several seasons, against the best players in the world. He then mentions his mandates in the French Nice and the Spanish Osasuna, tells how he gained great fame in the club during his three seasons in Cremonese, and emphasizes that he is the most expensive player in the history of the Swedish club Helsingborg.
The reality, however, is not so impressive. FakeNews Tragac received confirmation from the clubs of Genoa, Pescara, Nice and Osasuna that Puaca never played for them. From Sweden, they responded by saying that he was not the most expensive player in the club even at the time of the transfer, while in Cremonese they emphasize that he spent only one season there and played eight games.
Illustration: Fake News Tracker
Today, Puaca is engaged in a successful football school that bears his name. That school – as stated – provides “preparation of the child to enter sports” and teaches children to become “good, honest and responsible people”.
After a series of negative responses we received from football clubs, we called Puaca to give him a chance to comment or explain. Instead, curses, insults and threats to report to the police and court followed.
Football databases: Where did Puaca not play?
Information about the careers of football players, along with detailed statistical parameters, can be found in many online databases today. These databases, however, are not always completely reliable: they often leave out the periods when the player played in the lower league, and they are stingy when it comes to further history.
What do we know about Petar Puaca? According to the data of many football databases, he started his quite successful senior career in the late eighties in Crvena zvezda. Then follow other clubs, which, with minimal deviations, are listed in the same order in all analyzed bases. But then we come to the problem: Puaca claims that he played for Genoa, Pescara, Nice and Osasuna, which are not on any list. We decided to contact these clubs.
FC Genoa communications manager Dino Storace told FakeNews Tragac that there are no traces of Puaca’s presence in the Ligurian club. His colleague from the former first division FC Pescara, Masimo Muciante, confirmed that Petar Puaca never played for that club. Santiago Zuza Fernandez, director of the communications department of this club, told Tragac that he did not play for FC Osasuna either. The last negative response to the inquiry about cooperation with Puaca came from the media team of FC Nice. Please note that our inquiries were related to standard, professional engagement.
Screenshot
If we were to list all the media in which Petar Puaca was a guest and presented disputed information, the list would be very long. Searching the newspaper archives, we found that the newspaper Borba presented Puaca as a “controversial shooter” as well as “Mister Goal” who “conquered Genoa” in 1996, and the footballer then said that he was examined as a cosmonaut during medical tests. In recent years, Puaca regularly appears on television with a national frequency, but also on certain sports channels as a sports analyst.
“Swedish Ronaldo” and a record transfer
Petar Puaca says that he made the biggest transfer in his career by going to Swedish Helsingborg for three and a half million marks. According to him, this remains to this day the biggest transfer in the history of the Scandinavian club. He often points out that the fans called him the “Swedish Ronaldo”. On the Swedish specialized web portal of this club’s fans, we came across somewhat different epithets: one of the Helsingborg fans wrote that he remembers Puaca as a big, arrogant striker, who was “completely uninterested in warming up and participating in any team game”. He adds that Puaca made six appearances, without a single goal, and that he spent 135 minutes in the red jersey.
We contacted Helsingborg to verify the allegations regarding the amount of the transfer, and we received an answer from Midhat Kuduzovic, the communications manager of the club. After talking with the board member from the period when Puaca was brought to the club, in 1997, Kuduzovic tells us the following: “He can certainly conclude that Petar Puaca was not the most expensive player of Helsingborg then, and absolutely not now. He says that he was in Macedonia and bought Zoran Jovanovski. Zoran was then under contract and cost 2.5 million Swedish crowns. In the case of Petar, he says that there was no conversation of anything close to that figure”. Kuduzovic adds that, according to rough estimates, the most expensive transfer was recorded in the case of the Norwegian Tomas Serum, who played for Helsingborg in 2011 and left it a year later.
Time spent in Cremonese: “It’s my club, so to speak, even before Zvezda”
Puaca describes his supposedly three-year stay in Italian Cremonese as a period in which he became a “legend of the club” and got the chance to play against Inter Milan, in which his idol Ronaldo Nazario played. There, he says, he was adored again. In an interview, he describes his intimacy with Cremonese fans: “Why wouldn’t I give 200-300 marks a month, so they can buy torches?”
The media department of FC Cremonese denied to FakeNews Tragac that Puaca spent three seasons at the club. They mention the 1998/99 season as the only one in which he played for Cremonese when the team competed in Serie B. They explain in more detail that he wore number 29 and scored two goals in eight games – in defeats against Napoli and Lukeze.
According to Petar Puaca, he played the match against Inter in the Italian Cup on November 29, 1998. However, it’s not true. On the mentioned date, Inter played a league match against FC Salernitana, while Cremonese was knocked out of the cup earlier in 1998 and did not meet Inter. Cremonese also denied that Puaca played in their jersey against Inter in a friendly match on October 15, 1999.
Photo memories from Genoa
As we have already stated, Puaca is not in any database of Genoa players, and this football club denied that Puaca played for them. Nevertheless, the former football player tries to “remind” the public of his successes at that club in interesting ways. For example, he presented a (shortened) photo from Helsingborg as a memory of Genoa.
Screenshot
The second example required a somewhat more complex analysis. The combination of photo and video forensics, database searches and communication with the authors of the website “Atalanta Story” led us to the conclusion that almost everything was wrong in Puaca’s description of the picture “from Genoa” – the year, the match, and the opponent.
Proud of the red card which did not happen
In addition to his success in Italy, Puaca also points out that he is proud of the red card he received in the 37th minute after he hit a player of Albanian nationality from FC Leca who allegedly provoked him.
“I am proud of that red card! I hate Albanians, I hate Shiptars!”, he said exaltedly on Pink, in the morning program with Jovana Jeremic. There is no information in football databases that Puaca was an actor in this match, and FC Cremonese confirm that during his tenure at their club, Puaca never received a red card.
An attempt to get in contact – swearing, an announcement of a lawsuit and a block
After we collected the answers from all the mentioned clubs, we called Puaca to allow him to comment and explain.
Puaca agreed to talk about his career, but as soon as we told him a small part of the conclusions of our research, we got the answer: “Why do I need to justify where I played?” We once again tried to explain why we were asking such questions, to which Puaca said: “Don’t investigate anything, don’t call me, you are very rude”. He cursed us and hung up.
A minute later came his call: he announced that he would report us to the police. “You know that you will be reported to the police tonight and that I will sue you”, Puaca repeated several times.
After this call, we were blocked on the “Petar Puaca football school” Facebook page, through which we got Puaca’s contact. This Facebook page also promotes information that Puaca gave to the media, which turned out to be incorrect.