Basketball: What is it about the Serbian selectors that makes them resist the progressives?

While the leaders of the Serbian national football team have been going through progressive calculations for decades, the majority of basketball coaches will welcome the start of the European Championship in Riga without the SNS party card. Together with the players of the existing national team, who they mostly support the student rebellion in the country.

Basketball and burning: Let us go, Svetislav!

Duda Ivković - "We must not allow dictatorship"

"If we're going to speak in sports jargon, whenever someone steps on you, and when you feel injustice, that's when adrenaline jumps, concentration jumps."

This is how the legendary Serbian basketball coach spoke to "Vreme" in 2017 at the age of 77 Duda Ivković, who led our basketball team for a total of 12 years. He was a well-known fighter against Aleksandar Vučić and the entire progressive system.

"I'm certainly not going to focus on going to war with the state, far from it," he said in a big interview with "Vremen". "I have been through many political systems, and I am sure that this system is the worst. Today, the upbringing is such that whoever is involved in politics, and who is part of the ruling system, he expects to get something, to be satisfied."

Ivković died in 2021, when today's students were still in primary or secondary school. He would probably be proud of them today.

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Duško Vujošević - Vučić is a great evil for Serbia

"Vučić is very hard-working, dedicated, he has perfected the technology of coming and staying in power, all the tricks of a spin dictator, he is smart, but he is a great evil for Serbia," he said. Dusko Vujosevic in a big interview with "Vremen" in 2024.

In it, he commented on the arrival of Željko Obradović in Partizan, as well as the distribution of money to the clubs, which always goes in favor of Crvena zvezda. He also talked about how Aleksandar Vučić interferes in everything, including the question - whether he will Nikola Jokic to play for the national team at the previous basketball championship.

I am the general of the dead army

"Of course, players must have certain privileges when they sacrifice their rest and the need for recovery by playing for the national team; they should have certain privileges even if they are not members of the Serbian Progressive Party. But it seems to me that Vučić did it in order to take credit for himself and Jokić's playing. To him, we are all - and Jokić in this situation - indirect means," he said.

Vujošević is, although he recently had a kidney transplant, in every way supported the students in the protests. "Informer" recently announced that the coach threw eggs and other objects at SNS activists from his apartment, which Vujošević denied. ETF students responded in his style.

"Every evil has its end. And this will be called last year," he was quoted as saying.

Every evil has its end.
And this will be called Lana.
– Dusko Vujosevic

— ETF Blockade (@etfblokada) August 13, 2025

Željko Obradović - Thank you, we have our own money

Partizan coach and former Serbian coach, Zeljko Obradovic, the nine-time European champion, supported the student protests in Serbia at the very beginning.

"Young people are important in every nation. Students, pupils, and I have no qualms about supporting them," he said at the end of 2024 for the "Sport" club. "They want to create a society as they think and have their own demands. In the end, they will be the ones who will lead this country. Absolute support because if you don't support youth and young people, who will you support? They have their ideals, they fight for them and I wish them to persevere on that path. May it come to what they would like tomorrow to be."

Although Vučić wanted to take credit for the arrival, or return, of the famous coach to Serbia and to the bench of Partizan, "Vreme" found out that Željko Obradović, not only did not want to be on the list of supporters of the progressives, but dared to say that Partizan also earns some of its own money. At all matches of this club, you can hear good greetings and chants for the President of Serbia, and Partizan fans have long been recognized at student protests.

Željko signed, but be careful, Vučić might get really angry

Saša Đorđević - "Forward Serbian Youth"

The favorite point guard from the nineties of many Serbian families, he was also the coach of the national team when it returned to the winning streak.

During Djordjevic's selection, Nikola Kalinic was not invited to the Mundobasket in China, who dared to express his political opinion that the Serbian people should move on and resolve the Kosovo problem. At the beginning of 2019, Vučić said that he carefully read Kalinic's interview and found it interesting, and already that summer the athlete did not play in the national team.

Although it was obvious that politics interfered in the sports decision, Đorđević never commented on it - while he was a selector, he was a diplomat. Probably, he would have remained a selector.