Bad Blue Boys are more than the organised supporters of Dinamo Zagreb. Since 1986, they have defended the club’s name, fought governments and football officials, boycotted their own team and helped force the introduction of democratic elections at Dinamo. Their history also contains serious violence, political controversy and internal division, making BBB one of the most complex supporter movements in European football.
The group emerged during the final years of Yugoslavia, entered the 1990s alongside Croatia’s struggle for independence and spent the following decades protecting what it considered non-negotiable: Dinamo, Zagreb and the right of supporters to have a voice in their club. No single event explains Bad Blue Boys, but the abandoned match against Red Star Belgrade on 13 May 1990 remains the moment through which much of their identity is still understood.
The Birth of Bad Blue Boys
Dinamo had a large and passionate following long before the Bad Blue Boys name appeared. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, younger supporters increasingly gathered at the North Stand of Maksimir and travelled across Yugoslavia. They absorbed influences from British football crowds, Italian ultras and the rapidly developing supporter scenes in Split and Belgrade.
Bad Blue Boys regard 1986 as their foundation year, although the exact moment of formation is surrounded by terrace mythology. The group celebrates 17 March as its birthday, a tradition established when BBB marked their fifth anniversary at the match against Partizan on 17 March 1991. According to the group’s own historical account, the first stadium banner carrying the Bad Blue Boys name appeared on 25 October 1987 on Maksimir’s old East standing section.
The familiar explanation is that the name was inspired by the 1983 film Bad Boys, starring Sean Penn. This is better understood as accepted supporter tradition than as a perfectly documented founding story. The English bulldog became the group’s emblem, symbolising stubbornness and refusal to retreat, while the blue and white colours connected the new identity directly to Dinamo.
The early group developed through networks rooted in Zagreb’s neighbourhoods. Away travel, defending the group’s name and maintaining a visible presence throughout the city were considered as important as home support. BBB soon became known across Yugoslavia, with their rivalry against Torcida beginning almost immediately and confrontations with supporters of the major Belgrade clubs becoming increasingly political.
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Maksimir, 13 May 1990
The abandoned match between Dinamo Zagreb and Red Star Belgrade on 13 May 1990 is one of the most mythologised events in European football. It took place only weeks after Croatia’s first multi-party elections, at a time when Yugoslavia was already being pulled apart by nationalism and political crisis. Red Star arrived in Zagreb with thousands of Delije, while Maksimir was filled with Dinamo supporters expecting far more than an ordinary league match.
Violence developed around the stadium before spreading across the terraces. Visiting supporters broke through parts of their section and attacked spectators, while Bad Blue Boys forced their way from the opposite side and entered the pitch. The Yugoslav police responded with batons and tear gas, but many Dinamo supporters believed that the intervention was directed primarily against the Zagreb crowd.
Dinamo captain Zvonimir Boban then kicked a police officer who was confronting a Dinamo supporter. The image was repeatedly shown on television and transformed Boban into a symbol of Croatian defiance. The match never started, dozens were injured and Maksimir became one of the defining images of Yugoslavia’s collapse.
Bad Blue Boys commonly describe 13 May as the day on which the Croatian war began. Historically, the riot did not cause the conflict, which formally started later, but it exposed divisions that could no longer be contained inside a football stadium. For BBB, the date remains a central part of the group’s memory and is marked every year at Maksimir.
War, Remembrance and the Dinamo Name
When war reached Croatia, numerous Dinamo supporters exchanged the terraces for military service. Members of the first BBB generation fought in different units, while dozens of Dinamo supporters lost their lives. The monument outside Maksimir dedicated to those who died for Croatia became one of the most important places in the group’s collective memory.
Flags, choreographies and memorial tournaments have kept the names of fallen supporters present on the North Stand. Within BBB culture, the violence of May 1990 and the later wartime deaths form a continuous story of resistance, sacrifice and Croatian independence. This culture of remembrance remains central to the group’s identity.
After independence, however, BBB found themselves fighting the political leadership of the new Croatian state. Dinamo was renamed HAŠK Građanski in June 1991 and then Croatia Zagreb in 1993, a name closely associated with President Franjo Tuđman and his ambition to create a club representing the country internationally. Bad Blue Boys rejected both changes.
Many members had supported Croatian independence, but they did not accept the removal of Dinamo’s name simply because the decision came from a Croatian government. For them, Dinamo was not a disposable remnant of Yugoslavia. It belonged to Zagreb, its supporters and the generations who had followed the club before them.
The name Dinamo continued to be chanted while the team officially played as Croatia Zagreb. Tuđman and the club leadership were met with whistles and protests at Maksimir, making BBB one of the most visible opponents of the president’s football project. On 14 February 2000, the club assembly finally restored the name Dinamo, delivering one of the most significant victories in the group’s history.
The North Stand and Zagreb Identity
Bad Blue Boys are now inseparable from Maksimir’s North Stand, commonly known simply as Sjever. Their location changed during the early years, including periods on the East standing section and the South Stand, before the reconstructed North became their permanent home at the end of the 1990s. From there, BBB developed a style combining relentless vocal support with large flags, choreographies, pyrotechnics and direct messages to players and officials.
The bulldog, Zagreb’s coat of arms, neighbourhood names and Dinamo’s blue colour form the group’s main visual language. Murals across the city connect particular districts with Dinamo and the North Stand. They function as territorial markers, meeting points and memorials to deceased members.
The 1992 song “Dinamo ja volim” by Zagreb band Pips, Chips & Videoclips became an unofficial anthem of the Dinamo support. Its emotional importance comes from the period in which it appeared, when Croatia and the club were both being redefined. It remains one of the songs most closely associated with Dinamo and Bad Blue Boys.
Away travel has always carried special status within the group. Major European trips have produced some of BBB’s strongest performances, including occasions when Dinamo were heavily defeated but the visiting section continued singing. Within the group, reputation is built through routine league journeys and difficult away sectors as much as through high-profile European matches.
The Mamić Era and the Long Boycott
The conflict with Zdravko Mamić became the longest internal struggle in BBB history. Dinamo dominated Croatian football and regularly entered European competitions, but much of the support believed that the club had become a closed system serving private interests. Their objection concerned control, transparency, membership rights and the relationship between Dinamo, football agents and the Croatian Football Federation.
In August 2010, Bad Blue Boys began a boycott of Dinamo matches. Giving up the terrace was an extreme decision for a group built around permanent attendance, but BBB argued that normal support would legitimise a club with which they could no longer identify. The boycott was interrupted and modified several times, yet the wider conflict continued for years.
The decision also caused a serious internal division. A smaller pro-Mamić faction rejected the boycott and separated from the main group, while the anti-Mamić side retained most of the organised North. Stadium bans, police restrictions and lists of supporters refused entry contributed to the fragmentation and left Maksimir with extremely low attendances despite Dinamo’s domestic success.
BBB expanded the campaign beyond the stadium by supporting Zajedno za Dinamo, an initiative demanding that Dinamo respect its status as a members’ association. Public meetings, legal complaints and membership campaigns turned the terrace opposition into a movement for institutional change. The objective was a Dinamo in which members could elect the leadership and hold it accountable.
Futsal Dinamo and the Fight for Democracy
In 2014, Dinamo supporters became involved in Futsal Dinamo, creating an alternative home for a fan base alienated from Maksimir. Indoor halls offered full terraces, choreographies and an atmosphere that had largely disappeared from the football stadium during the boycott. More importantly, the club operated according to the principle of one member, one vote.
Futsal Dinamo demonstrated that the demand for democracy was more than a slogan directed against Mamić. Members elected the leadership, participated in the assembly and influenced the club’s direction. The project kept organised support active while introducing a new generation to the principles of membership and accountability.
Bad Blue Boys gradually returned to Maksimir, with the 2016 Champions League match against Juventus marking an important stage in the restoration of a united North. Mamić was later convicted in Croatia and left for Bosnia and Herzegovina, but supporters continued demanding reforms that would prevent another individual network from controlling the club.
That campaign reached its decisive point in August 2025 when Dinamo adopted a new statute under which members would elect every seat in the club assembly through the one member, one vote principle. The first fully democratic elections followed in September. After years of boycotts, division and legal pressure, one of BBB’s central demands had finally become part of Dinamo’s official structure.
Torcida and the Eternal Derby
Torcida Split are the primary rivals of Bad Blue Boys. The rivalry is built around Dinamo and Hajduk, but it also represents Zagreb and Split, the capital and Dalmatia, and two powerful regional identities. Since the late Yugoslav period, matches between the clubs have been contests between the two largest organised supporter movements in Croatia.
Each derby is a test of numbers, vocal power, banners, pyrotechnics and control over the visual image of the stadium. Stolen material, attacks on travelling groups and confrontations in Zagreb, Split and along motorway routes have repeatedly intensified the hostility. The rivalry exists independently of results and remains central to the identity of both groups.
There have also been moments when shared interests temporarily became more important than rivalry. Between October 2013 and March 2014, BBB, Torcida and other Croatian groups observed a form of truce while opposing new away-ticket vouchers, the Croatian Football Federation and restrictions on organised support. The cooperation showed that groups capable of fighting each other could also recognise a common threat to supporter culture.
The truce did not produce friendship. Once the campaign weakened, insults and confrontations returned and the Eternal Derby resumed its familiar character. Nevertheless, the episode remains important because it demonstrated both the possibilities and the limits of solidarity within the Croatian supporter scene.
Armada, Delije and Other Rivalries
Armada Rijeka represent BBB’s other major domestic rivalry. Matches between Dinamo and Rijeka have gained importance during periods when the clubs competed directly for trophies, but the hostility between the two groups exists independently of the league table. Away matches in Rijeka and Zagreb regularly bring intense terrace competition and large police operations.
The rivalry with Red Star’s Delije belongs to a different category. Dinamo and Red Star no longer meet regularly, yet 13 May 1990 ensures that the relationship remains one of the strongest symbolic hostilities in the former Yugoslav supporter world. The political meaning attached to the two groups has kept the rivalry alive without frequent direct contact.
Partizan’s Grobari are another historical opponent from the Yugoslav league. Alliances elsewhere can reinforce these old divisions, with BBB’s friendship with Gate 13 contrasting with Olympiacos Gate 7’s relationship with Delije and PAOK Gate 4’s connection with Grobari. Since 2023, AEK Athens and sections of Original 21 have also become bitter enemies following the violence in Nea Filadelfia.
Friendships and International Connections
The strongest and most visible international relationship of Bad Blue Boys is with sections of the Panathinaikos support, particularly Gate 13. The connection developed around 2010 through shared contacts in Rome and was strengthened by reciprocal visits to Zagreb and Athens. Members, flags and banners of one group have repeatedly appeared in the other’s section.
BBB also have long-standing contacts with Roma’s Fedayn, one of the historic groups of the Curva Sud. Relationships between Zagreb, Athens and Rome overlap, but they should not always be treated as one formal alliance. Ultras friendships are often maintained by particular generations, crews and personal contacts rather than every member of an entire stand.
Within Croatia, BBB have an especially close relationship with Funcuti of Šibenik. Members of both groups have attended matches and gatherings together, creating an unusual friendship between organised supporters of two domestic clubs. The connection has occasionally caused controversy in Šibenik, particularly when Dinamo and Šibenik have met in important matches.
Links also exist with sections of the Dynamo Kyiv support, particularly the White Boys Club. These contacts help explain the repeated support for Ukraine displayed on the North Stand following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Other relationships sometimes attributed to BBB vary between generations and should not automatically be described as official brotherhoods.
Violence and the Athens Tragedy
Violence has been present throughout BBB history and cannot be separated from the group’s reputation. Clashes with Torcida, Armada, Serbian groups, police and European opponents have resulted in injuries, arrests, travel restrictions and stadium closures. Some confrontations were spontaneous, while others reflected an organised hooligan culture operating outside football grounds.
The group’s most serious modern crisis occurred in Athens on 7 August 2023. Despite a UEFA decision preventing away supporters from attending the Champions League qualifier between AEK and Dinamo, a large group of Croatian supporters travelled to Greece. After meeting Panathinaikos supporters, they reached the area around AEK’s stadium in Nea Filadelfia, where a mass confrontation followed.
Twenty-nine-year-old AEK supporter Michalis Katsouris was fatally stabbed and ten other people were injured. More than 100 suspects, including 102 Croatian nationals, were initially detained. The incident led to the postponement of the match, an investigation into failures by the Greek police and enormous pressure on Bad Blue Boys.
The Croatian detainees denied responsibility for the killing and were gradually released on bail in December 2023. Publicly available information has not established who delivered the fatal wound, making it inaccurate to attribute the murder to BBB as a whole. At the same time, the organised journey and participation in the confrontation placed the group at the centre of events that ended with a young man’s death.
BBB members later described Athens as the most serious crisis the group had faced. It damaged their public image, intensified government pressure and demonstrated how international alliances could produce consequences far beyond the usual codes of terrace confrontation.
Politics, Controversy and Community Work
Croatian nationalism and anti-communism were central to the early BBB identity. Croatian flags and national symbols appeared on their terrace before independence, while members understood Dinamo as an expression of both Zagreb and Croatia. Their later opposition to Tuđman and Mamić showed that this nationalism did not translate into permanent loyalty to any government or political party.
It would be inaccurate to describe every member through a single political label. Bad Blue Boys have included nationalists, individuals with far-right views, politically indifferent supporters and people with other positions. Their most consistent principles have been loyalty to Dinamo, Zagreb and Croatia, together with resistance to institutions attempting to control the club or the terrace.
Documented appearances of fascist and Ustaša symbols and songs remain a serious part of the group’s record. In 2023, chanting during a match in Velika Gorica resulted in arrests, stadium bans and a fine for Dinamo. A balanced account cannot ignore these incidents, but it should not use them to claim that thousands of supporters across several generations share an identical ideology.
A very different side of BBB became visible after the Zagreb earthquake in March 2020. Members helped evacuate hospitals, move medical equipment and assist mothers and newborn babies from the damaged Petrova maternity hospital. Through cooperation with the Red Cross, they also delivered food and medicine to elderly and vulnerable residents, organised blood donations and helped clear rubble.
When another destructive earthquake struck Petrinja and the surrounding region in December 2020, BBB joined other Croatian supporter groups in relief work. These actions used the same neighbourhood organisation developed for matches and away travel, redirected towards helping the community. The contrast between violence and solidarity remains one of the central contradictions of Bad Blue Boys.
Bad Blue Boys at Forty
Bad Blue Boys marked their 40th anniversary in March 2026 during Dinamo’s away match against Lokomotiva at Maksimir. The setting was appropriate: even when officially placed in the visiting section, the group was celebrating four decades inside the stadium that shaped its identity.
The modern North remains loud, visually organised and capable of attracting new generations. At the same time, BBB now follow a very different Dinamo from the club they boycotted during the Mamić era. Members can elect the entire assembly, while the club’s record membership figures show how far the idea of an active Dinamo membership has spread.
Bad Blue Boys have earned admiration for their support, resistance and work for Zagreb, as well as condemnation for violence and extremist incidents. Neither side alone explains the group. Their importance lies in the fact that they repeatedly moved beyond the role of spectators and directly influenced the name, governance and identity of Dinamo Zagreb.