In the 2000/01 season, Vojvodina fought unexpectedly for competitive survival in the elite and the club ran into financial problems. The departure of the club director Svetozar Šapurić opened the descent and Vojvodina entered in a several years long crisis. In a short period of time, numerous managers and coaches were changed regularly and the situation deteriorated more and more. This was a period of mediocre results and the circle of selling the best players to richer European clubs after just a couple of seasons of first-team football and replacing them with fresh young talents. Despite that, at that period, a large number of class players worn the jersey of Vojvodina like Miloš Krasić, Milan Jovanović, Milan Stepanov, Ranko Despotović, Vlada Avramov, Bojan Neziri, Vidak Bratić, Jovan Tanasijević, Radoslav Batak, Milan Vještica, Milan Belić and Miodrag Stošić. In 2005, as a final act of desperation, the organised supporters, the Firmaši and Vojvodina's oldest supporters, called the Stara Garda (English: Old Guard), gathered and took over the assembly of the club to make the public aware on their dissatisfaction and the bad situation in the club. In the same year, the newly arrived club president Ratko Butorović announced a better future for club. The squad was improved and in fact followed the stabilization and the rise of the club, both financial and in terms of results. Also, the management announced large reconstructions of the stadium and training facility, which were realized in the following years.