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.
