He went to prison for art theft
he was passing off stolen paintings as his own as part of a gang, lolo
Painting a pretty picture
In a bizarre case of football imitating art (literally), former Chelsea 'keeper Peter Borota was somehow managing to carve out a half decent career as a painter until it was discovered that all the paintings he tried to pass off as his own were in fact stolen, receiving a six-month prison sentence for his trouble. You can just image what that did to the egos of the critics who, up until then, had heaped lavish praise onto the Yugoslavian custodian…
Peter Borota - The greatest rebel among goalkeepers
Peter Borota was Chelsea's eccentric goalkeeper, a rocker among athletes and a painter among footballers. For the first time, his sister Mirjana, exclusively for Pressmagazin, tells the story of the Paja Jovanovic canvas affair and about Borotta's last days in Italy
http://www.pressonline.rs/sr/vesti/PresMagazin/story/173948/Petar+Borota+-+Najveći+buntovnik+među+golmanima.html
There are many who love goalkeeper Peter Borot, and they were born after the goal given to him by Sestic at the Red Star and Partizan derby in the late 1970s. And it is not just those who sleep on YouTube where the moment from the match between Red Star and Partizan was recorded when Shell just approached and, Borotti dropping the ball to the ground, scored.
Only Borota was convinced throughout the stadium that the referee played the intermission. And for many, this is the first association of a goalkeeper who passed away last year in Genoa, Italy. And the other one is from London when he defended for Chelsea. He remembers, after one bravura intervention, his entering the goal with the ball, all to lift the cap. These are the two pictures and episodes from the biography of a football player with an ace on his back that is known by everyone, from a research associate in Vinca to autolimar on the Ibar Highway.
But in order for those who have never watched Borota and never heard of the episodes "Six" and "Hat" to approach the personality of this goalkeeper, it is necessary to recall the week in which the news of his death in Genoa was reported in the media. And in that week the texts about Borota were more than symbolic. More specifically, they portrayed the true character of the controversial goalie. The news of Borota's death was found only in short lines on the sports pages of the daily papers, where the biography was transmitted with the episodes "Six" and "The Hat in London" already mentioned.
And then the texts about the eccentric goalkeeper moved to foreign cultures and even columns. And it was completely logical because Peter Borota came out of the dimensions of the sports sides. The unconventional careers and lives of goalkeepers Chelsea, Partizan and OFK Belgrade could also be described as things that were not directly related to sports. Peter the Great came to Chelsea in 1979 to a stadium that, like today, was located in the Kings Road neighborhood, where the punk was launched, where the Sex boutique, owned by Vivienne Westwood, and where Malcolm McLaren get together the Sex Pistols group. And Borotta's career in Chelsea flirted with punk, at least in terms of unconventionality and rebellion. He even described in one interview his London episode in which he was approached by a punk and asked to have his autograph written on his arm.
And London news was full of stories peculiar to rock rebels. Borota climbed on the counter, going out of the penalty area dribbling the opposing attackers and, of course, forgetting the cap after excellent intervention. There were legends, one of which is known about the ball that broke after one of his interventions. The former patented the foreplay of deportation by first cracking the ball in the crossbar, which regularly caused the hair to be pulled off the Chelsea coaching bench.
Unconventionality at matches spilled over into life itself. A bunch of controversy has to do with the Belgrade goalkeeper. The London episode was followed by a story about his avoidance of military service, which caused him to be imprisoned in the former Yugoslavia. Later, everything was smoothed out, and a middle ground was found, but by then rumors were circulating that he had sought political asylum and had emigrated to South Africa, which was then chained to isolation. And then, when Borotta after Chelsea, Porto, Boavista ... threw on his gloves and returned to Belgrade, the news arrived, which brought him back to the scandal genre, but this time the matter was more serious. Petar Borota was arrested as the alleged organizer of the robbery of Paja Jovanovic's paintings. From those days until February 12, 2010, when it was announced that he had died of a serious illness in Genoa, no order had been made about him.
Mirjana, the sister of Petra Borote, has had insight into episodes from the famous ex-goalkeeper of Italy all year. For the first time, she reveals to the Pressmagazin the backdrop of unsolved episodes from her brother's life.
- After his football career ended, Peter returned to Belgrade. At first he wanted to be the goalkeeper coach at Partizan, but he did not welcome the club. He opened a perfume shop at the Slavija Hotel. The only thing that was a constant in his life was painting. He had an exhibition at SKC during his goalkeeping career in Partizan. London, and on his return to Belgrade, he planned a major retrospective of his works - describes Mirjana Borotin's life after his career.
But before that exhibition takes place, painting, or rather a few paintings by Paja Jovanovic, will lead to a dramatic episode in Borot's life.
- Peter loved to sit in the popular "Cvetic", a cafe near Cvetni Square, across from the Third Belgrade High School. And in that "Cvetic" in 1994, what would happen to my brother would change his life permanently. People with pictures rolled up came to his table. They wanted Peter to evaluate their value, and these were works by Paja Jovanovic that were stolen from a monastery near Fantast Castle. They didn't even know what they had in their hands and they wanted my brother to evaluate the value. This crew was probably followed, as soon the police entered Cvetic and arrested my brother with pictures in his hands.
Mirjana goes on to say that Borota spent six months in a pre-trial detention center after deciding to leave Belgrade and move to Italy.
- He was a great emotional person. He couldn't bear what had happened to him. He went to Genoa, where he lived to death without any papers and documents. He had several friends who accepted him. He got along. He painted and made exhibitions. Reviews of his exhibitions were published in Italian newspapers.
A few years ago, Mirjana went to visit her brother in Genoa without realizing it was their last meeting.
- I went to a friend in Italy and used that trip to visit him in Genoa. I had a wonderful day with him. I never knew I would never see him again. He changed drastically. It was no longer the crazy Per who received that shot from Sestic and who came in with Chelsea's goal. He became a loner, locked only in his paintings. There was no mention of football - Borota's sister recalls.
Borot's originality was not only eccentric defenses and dribbling in the field, painting, but also styling. The first patented long shorts, which would later be taken over by many world-renowned "units".
- That shorts was neither "adidas" nor "puma" but came from his mother's sewing machine. She sewed it with all those reinforcements. Peter was a goalkeeper, an artist, but also a 16-man model. And it was a product of its originality. He always owned it. It was original in everything, even in gifts. Only he could buy me a pink bear as a kid - Mirjana testifies.
In addition to originality, Mirjana also points out that Peter did not want to burden anyone with his problems. He lost the money he earned as a footballer. He kept himself purely from pictures.
- We spoke on the phone for the last time in January 2010. A few days after the New Year. He had a hard time talking. We didn't know what was wrong with him. I told him, "Tell me what's going on? Do not ax your mother. "He replied," I am fine. I have tonsillitis. Everything will be fine. Take care of my mom. " It was our last conversation. He died on February 12th. On the same day that his father died in 1980 - his last conversation with Borot describes his sister.
Apart from this coincidence of the date of death, there was also symbolism. The first game Chelsea played at Stamford Bridge after Borot's death was against the same team that Peter the Great debuted at - Liverpool before captain Terry and Gerrard shook hands at Stamford followed by a minute of silence followed by a digital epitaph at the stadium scoreboard
