Ekipa was a short-lived sports daily published in Belgrade

Belgrade

Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

, Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

. Right from the first issue on April 18, 2005, it attempted to bite into the market held for decades by Sportski žurnal

Sportski žurnal

Sportski žurnal is a Belgrade-based sports daily. Each day, about half of its pages are devoted to football, whereas the rest deal with, in order of importance, basketball, volleyball, waterpolo, handball, tennis, auto racing, skiing, boxing, cycling etc...

and Sport

DSL Sport

Sport is a Serbian daily sports newspaper. Тhе first edition was published on 5 May 1945 under the name Fiskultura...

dailies.

The paper went about their goal by offering bold, often bordering on sensationalist, coverage of day-to-day sporting events, as well as wider on-going trends in sport.

The very first issue set the tone fittingly. It featured an in-your-face cover headline screaming "Shame", as teaser for an interview with Milorad Kosanović

Milorad Kosanovic

Milorad Kosanović is a Serbian football manager and former footballer. He is currently the manager of Chinese Super League team Shaanxi Zhongjian Chanba F.C.....

, former Serbia-Montenegro under-21 national team and Red Star Belgrade

Red Star Belgrade

Red Star Belgrade is a football club from Belgrade, Serbia. The club is a part of the Red Star Sports Society.Red Star Belgrade is the most successful Serbian club, with a record of 25 national championships and 23 national cups in both Serbian and ex-Yugoslav competitions...

 coach, in which he claimed the Serbia-Montenegro league is entirely rigged.

Initially, Ekipa turned a lot of heads, but soon found itself short-strapped for attention grabbing topics. It wasn't able to ride the initial wave of attention nor did it succeed in making a significant dent into the market still firmly held by two established sports dailies. At this point, the original group of owners sold the daily to Radisav Rodić (owner of Kurir

Kurir

Kurir is a high-circulation daily tabloid published in Belgrade. Its first issue appeared at the news stands on May 6, 2003.Kurirs tone is abrasive, direct and irreverent. It runs sensationalist stories, the other publications won't touch...

and Glas javnosti

Glas javnosti

Glas javnosti is a daily newspaper published in Belgrade.Its first issue appeared on April 20, 1998, published by a group of journalists from Blic daily who, led by Manojlo Vukotić, left to form their own newspaper.Initially, their new paper carried the Novi Blic name, but the Belgrade Commercial...

).

In late October 2005, barely 6 months into its overall run, new owner Radisav Rodić pulled the plug on Ekipa, making the October 29th issue its last. Couple of days later, under the same ownership, new daily called Start

Start (newspaper)

Start was a short-lived daily tabloid published in Belgrade between late 2005 and early 2006.After the commercial failure of his Ekipa sports daily, Radisav Rodić, owner of Kurir and Glas javnosti dailies, decided to give Start a try in late 2005...

was launched.