Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 17/01/2023
The claim that children from Serbia sang “Who says that, who lies that Serbia is small” at a sports tournament held in Sarajevo became viral on social networks, but it is not true.
On January 15, 2023, the Facebook profile of Alickovic Nihad posted a status claiming that children from Serbia sang “Who says that, who lies that Serbia is small” in a sports hall in Sarajevo. The announcement states:
‼️THE CHILDREN FROM PANCEVO, SERBIA, SANG IN THE SPORTS HALL: who says that, who lies that Serbia is small…‼️
(…)
Calm those children down so that this tournament ends peacefully and let everyone go to their homes.
“Who says that, who lies…”, in the hall of the late Ramiz Salcin.
Not long after this post, a video showing children from Serbia cheering was published on the Facebook page BOSNJACI. The video states the following:
‼️In the “Ramiz Salcin” hall:
“Who says that, who is lying that Serbia is small,
it is not small, it is not small, it fought three wars
The twelfth, twelfth, the Turks were driven out…”
‼️The children from Pancevo were suggested to sing this by their parents and coaches, while none of those present were allowed to rebel because they were threatened with arrest by the Trojka’s police.
By the time of writing this analysis, the clip had been viewed more than 59,000 times on the Facebook page BOSNJACI. Subsequently, the same clip was published on the profile of Alickovic Nihad, where it had more than 30,000 views by the time of writing this analysis.
While featuring the same claims, the video was shared in 11 more posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as well as in articles on the following web portals: BH Vijesti, Hayat, Index, BH Lopta and Samo provjereno.
What are the facts?
From January 12 to 15, 2023, an international children’s soccer tournament “Junior Champion” was held in Sarajevo, in which teams of children born between 2008 and 2016 from different countries participated. The tournament attracted the attention of the public due to two incidents that took place on January 14 – the nationalist chanting of the team from Split, and then the attack on the parents and representatives of a team from Serbia, during which one person was injured with a knife.
The video, which is claimed to show children singing the lines “Who says that, who lies that Serbia is small”, was recorded at a match of the same tournament, held a day later, on January 15. However, the video does not show what is claimed. Although it is the same melody, the children do not say the verse “Who says that, who lies that Serbia is small”. Instead, the same melody was used to sing slightly different verses about their club Fortuna, and not about Serbia:
“Who says that, who lies that Fortuna is small,
It’s not small, it’s not small, it gave each of them three”.
Club Fortuna from Pancevo confirmed to us that this is indeed the text of the song. In their response to Raskrinkavanje, they stated:
As for the song, it is the product of our boys, who invented this with, of course, reworked lyrics, just for reasons of rivalry with clubs from our city.
(…)
The text says: “Who says that, who lies that Fortuna is small”, referring to the other clubs in Pancevo who sometimes joke that we are small, smaller than them…..and it goes on: it is not small, it is not small, it gave each of them three, alluding to the goals scored (…)
According to the facts stated in the analysis, we evaluate the first publication of the claim that children from Pancevo sang the lyrics “Who says that, who lies that Serbia is small”, posted on the Facebook profile of Alickovic Nihad as fake news, and the other publications of the same claim as distribution of fake news.