A story based on fabricated speculation has appeared on the front page of a Slovenian tabloid, alleging that the owner of the United Group, Dragan Solak, is a “double spy”.
Serbian tabloids carried the story with even more bombastic and manipulative headlines. N1 Slovenia put the matters in context and managed to reveal the reasons why Serbian tabloids imported these texts more and more quickly.
As N1 Slovenia reports, Serbian tabloids, which, as they state, like the vast majority of Serbian media, are under the complete control of President Aleksandar Vucic, are once again full of reports about Dragan Solak, businessman and co-owner of United Group, which operates in several countries of the European Union and the Western Balkans.
As an example, they use the titles “Double Spy” and “The Great Discovery!”.
This is another attempt to discredit and spread lies about Solak, which are abundant in the Serbian media, N1 Slovenia reported, adding the United Group is practically the only independent media in Serbia that Vucic would like to get rid of.
They allege that the extent of the brutality of Vucic’s conflict with Solak’s independent media is also seen in the fact that he paid for the rights to broadcast matches of the English Premier League through the state-owned Telekom Srbija, at the price ten times higher than regular one.
The goal, according to N1 Slovenia, was only for the media owned by Dragan Solak to “get down on their knees”.
Telekom Srbija, which is a state-owned company, paid an incredible hundred million euros for these rights per season, or 600 million for six seasons, although, for instance, in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the transmission costs only about 25 million euros per season.
This is just one of the latest examples that shows how brutally Vucic is dealing with Solak’s independent media in Serbia, and the attacks on the media under Vucic’s control must also be understood in this context.
However, according to N1 Slovenia, the latest discrediting attempt did not start in Serbia, but in Slovenia, where United Group also has significant investments, including Telemach and N1 Slovenia online portal.
