For a brief moment in 2012, the rapacious gaze of the world’s media centered on Ukraine. It was the year of the European Championships in Poland and Ukraine – a tournament that brings out the best and worst in Europe – but things were going to get bad before they could get better.

It all began with a 2012 BBC documentary entitled Stadiums of Hate, covering the inextricable links between football hooliganism and racism within Ukraine. It exposed fan violence, rioting, nationalist symbolism and neo-Nazi protestors to a shocked global audience, only weeks before the tournament.

In its most shocking incident, the documentary showed a gang of Dynamo Kiev fans brutally bashing a group of Indian students, who had attended a match in Dynamo colours. 

Sydney FC marquee and Johnny Warren medalist Milos Ninkovic was a Dynamo stalwart at the time, but his decorated spell in Kiev was coming to an end.

Ninkovic had played in the Ukrainian capital for almost a decade, giving him an incredible insight into Eastern European football. The Euros were overshadowing a much darker football culture, which many players were already aware of.

The Ukrainian government – like many other Eastern European nations – doesn’t collect statistics on racism-motivated violence at football matches. Human rights organisations have criticised this as evidence that Eastern European governments routinely ignore the issue.

Clashes at the subsequent 2016 Euros, involving Ukrainian, Polish and Russian fans again highlighted the aura of intimidation, xenophobia and violent nationalism that pervades Eastern European football.

Ukrainian cops escort rival fans in Kiev

This is partly the result of widespread corruption. Almost 10 per cent of Ukrainian footballers have been approached by match fixing organisations. Two Ukrainian football club Presidents have been arrested over the past decade for offences ranging from arson and affiliation with organised crime to murder.

Steadily falling crowd attendances in the Ukrainian Premier League (UPL) – which averages less than 6,000 people per match – and a crumbling Ukrainian economy also encourage UPL clubs to rely on other, dubious forms of income.

Dynamo Kiev, for example, holds licenses to export nuclear arms and precious metals. A former Ukrainian international, remarking on the struggles of playing football in his homeland, publicly told the BBC: “There are very few Ukrainian clubs that exist primarily to play football.”

Meanwhile in 2014, an entire world away, Sydney FC was struggling to fill the marquee void left by Alessandro Del Piero. The Italian superstar had left for India, which had joined the likes of the MLS and China in out-bidding the A-League for glamorous talent.

The Sky Blues were forced to search elsewhere for footballers who could put bums on seats. Eventually, they found them in the most unlikely of places.

In 2014, Ninkovic wasn’t the only Eastern European about to leave for sunny Australian shores. Before he departed his homeland for a fresh start down under, the Serb fleetingly united with countryman Milos Dimitrijevic, a 30-year-old Red Star Belgrade midfielder, who was witnessing equally disturbing scenes in the Serbian capital.

It was a fortuitous meeting for Australian football.

The Eternal Derby (Red Star Belgrade vs Partizan Belgrade) is world-renowned for the unparalleled passion it produces – the byproduct of half a century of political tension between Serbian communist and military factions.

This passion is largely displayed in two ways. Firstly, there’s the pyrotechnics. What the South Americans have in tifo and choreography, the Serbians more than make up for in fireworks (that often devolve into just fire).

Starting fires at the opposition's home ground is a common feature of the Eternal derby

Then, there’s the derby’s bloody history of violence. Countless deaths are directly attributable to this match, stemming from a time when Serbian dictators used football as a form of controlled, sanctioned aggression. Even now, stabbings and beatings in the crowd are not uncommon, with violence occasionally spilling onto the pitch.

Dimitrijevic played in four Eternal derbies, Ninkovic two, before they traded in the daunting showpieces, hostile ritual and repulsive savagery of Belgrade football for a league that provided quiet, sun-drenched afternoons in front of 5,000 people at Bluetongue Stadium.

You could accuse the two Serbs of getting old, but the financially ruinous Red Star – like many Eastern European clubs lacking platinum exports to boost their bottom line – was collapsing around them.

Just like that, Ninkovic and Dimitrijevic were gone. Red Stars became Sky Blues, and two more notches were etched in the A-League’s growing Eastern European bedpost.

Etched is probably the wrong word. These two salient Serbians took an axe to the A-League, hacking a clear path for future Eastern European marquees to follow.

In his first season, Dimitrijevic won every individual accolade Sydney had to offer, and a spot in the PFA Team of the Season. A year later, Ninkovic went one better, winning all of his compatriot’s previous awards and the Johnny Warren medal to boot.  

Since Dimitrijevic moved to Sydney, 15 Eastern Europeans have braved the 24-hour plane trip, to stamp their mark upon Australian shores.

They arrive from places some of us have never heard of, with last names we dare not try to pronounce, and when they’re terrible, like Tomislav Misura, they’re here one day and gone the next.

But when they’re great, they’re some of the finest names to ever grace the A-League. The A-League’s all-time highest goalscorer and arguably the greatest A-League import of all time, Albanian-Kosovar Besart Berisha, has scored 102 league goals in seven seasons in Australia, guiding two clubs to three A-League Championships.

Besart Berisha scores against Sydney FC in the 2017 A-League grand final

When you look at A-League imports over the years, Eastern Europe stacks up well. There’s been no shortage of bulky Brits, bungling Brazilians, dismal Dutchmen and jaded Japanese.

Yet there’s been very few clumsy Croats, selfish Serbs or had-it Hungarians. These may be generalisations, but the proof is in the pudding. Or should we say, baba ghanouch.

Reigning champions Sydney FC wholly relied on a contingent of three Eastern European imports to win the Championship-Premiership double last season; Serbian midfielders Ninkovic and Dimitrijevic, and Slovakian forward Filip Holosko.

These three battle-hardened campaigners used their experience of biting Balkan winters and stadiums lit clearer by flares than floodlights to teach the A-League what a quality foreign signing looks like.  

Australia’s ability to attract Eastern Europeans extends beyond their region’s problems. While A-League salaries are generally lower than those in Russia, Serbia, Croatia or Ukraine, marquee wages are often just one strong season away.

But Australia still offers a greater standard of living than many Eastern European nations. Our clubs offer excellent facilities and – with a few notable exceptions – players are paid in full, and on time.

Eastern European influence on Australian football is no new development. Throughout the 20th century former Yugoslavians flocked to Australia in droves, and the likes of Eddie Krncevic played a large role in building Australian football’s reputation.

But now Eastern Europeans are arriving as fully fledged footballers, and they bring another world of knowledge with them.

Perhaps it’s just the superior level in the East, but these footballers often endure significant hardships to make it this far. They’re often not as financially secure as imports from other nations, and they might not be as keen to return home.

Red Star Belgrade fans riot against police

Footage of Balkan football can make many Australians quiver in their Blundstones.

At its worst, it is downright ugly, but at its best it evokes a passion and commitment that’s created – in spite of squalid conditions and rife corruption – many of the greatest footballers of all time.

While we all wish for a return to the glory days of Valeriy Lobanovskiy, Hristo Stoichkov, Gheorghe Hagi and Ferenc Puskas, sadly football in Eastern Europe teeters on the precipice.

But if the A-League can provide opportunities to these footballers, Eastern Europe’s loss, could be Australia’s gain.