Football: Dejan Damjanovic prefers to remember the good times despite Kitchee row rumbling on
- The 42-year-old announces his retirement after a stellar 25-year career ended with him frozen out at the Hong Kong Premier League giants
- Prolific former striker insists ‘time will cure’ the ‘misunderstandings’ from his last few months at Kitchee, with financial dispute taken to Fifa
AFC Champions League all-time leading scorer Dejan Damjanovic pushed his fractious departure from Kitchee to one side to celebrate his stint with the Hong Kong Premier League champions, after bringing down the curtain on his stellar 25-year career.
The 42-year-old announced his retirement on social media this week having scored 42 times in the continental championship – five more than any other player – for four different clubs, with his two-and-a-half year spell in Hong Kong proving to be his last as a professional.
Damjanovic joined Kitchee in January 2021 after making his name in South Korea’s K-League with FC Seoul, and he continued to his prolific scoring record before a dispute over unpaid bonuses clouded his final months with the club ahead of his departure in May.
“I came just for six months, to compete in the ACL, to see if we can do something after that,” he told the Post. “I broke the record, I was the league’s MVP, it was unbelievable.
“Even the last few months, when we had some misunderstandings, even this I will forget very quickly. It’s something time will cure and everybody will move on and everything will be OK in a few years.”
Damjanovic helped Kitchee to two Hong Kong Premier League titles and was denied the possibility of a third because of the league’s suspension in 2022 during the pandemic The club also won the Senior Shield and Hong Kong FA Cup to complete the domestic treble in 2023.
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That disagreement remains unresolved and has seen Damjanovic take a case to the game’s governing body Fifa, but he still views his time in Hong Kong positively.
“What’s most important is what we did in these two seasons and how many historic results we did,” Damjanovic said.
“My individual performance is unbelievable, to score 60 goals in 60 games and the last few months I didn’t play. I’m so happy that I managed to make something important for Hong Kong football.”
Damjanovic’s signing was hailed as a coup for Kitchee, even though the striker was in the latter stages of a career that had seen him play in Serbia and Saudi Arabia before a move to FC Seoul in 2009.
It was in the Korean capital that his career in Asia took off, scoring regularly for Choi Yong-soo’s side and finishing as a runner-up to Guangzhou Evergrande in the 2013 Asian Champions League.
Damjanovic remained a regular scorer at domestic and continental level despite joining Kitchee six months short of his 40th birthday, his initial impact prompting the club to extend his six-month stay by two years.
The Montenegrin was wearing the club’s colours when he broke Lee Dong-gook’s scoring record in the Asian Champions League, netting his 38th goal in the competition in Kitchee’s 2-1 loss against Japan’s Cerezo Osaka in June 2027.
He would add four more goals to his total, scoring for the final time in the competition on May 1 last year when he converted from the penalty spot in a 2-2 draw with Vissel Kobe as Kitchee progressed to the competition’s knockout rounds for the first time.
“Maybe it was accidentally, but everything was happening at the same time,” he said.
“Historic results in the ACL, the Hong Kong team qualifying for the Asian Cup and a couple of players moving to China and doing unbelievably well in the league there.
“I’m very happy. Everything is important, everything is connected. The last few years we did incredible things for Hong Kong football, not just Kitchee.
“Kitchee is representing the best of Hong Kong football but generally the atmosphere around the national team, around the clubs is unbelievable and I’m really happy I was part of this progress happening in Hong Kong.
“I’m really happy to see the teams are getting more serious, more professional and more competitive. It means we did well and Hong Kong football is in a good way.”
