The bronze medal from the European Championship should have been reason enough to celebrate. Volleyball players Serbia won the sixth consecutive medal at the European championships in Istanbul.
Instead, just a day after the reception with the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić, their alleged "indecency" came to the fore, and the Volleyball Federation of Serbia announced that it would take certain measures.
Videos from that event soon began to circulate on social networks, primarily due to the impression that the national team members did not share the acted "mood" of their host Vučić.
While he was speaking, some of the volleyball players stood in the background with serious expressions on their faces, with no visible desire to take part in the performance that is usually expected at a medal reception. The atmosphere was gloomy, and the volleyball players' reactions were even interpreted as distancing themselves from the president.
By itself, of course, body language is not proof of anything. It is not possible to reliably conclude from someone's facial expression what he thinks about Vučić, the government or the reception itself, but the fact is that this impression became so dominant that a few days later the general secretary of the Volleyball Federation of Serbia, Ivan Knežević, decided to publicly react.
Knežević's "big disappointment".
This is where the story becomes much more interesting than the reception itself.
Knežević told the tabloid "Blic" that he was "very disappointed" with the behavior of the volleyball players, emphasizing that he does not want to diminish any part of their sporting success or what they have given to Serbian volleyball over the years.
However, the message that followed was much broader than the evaluation of behavior at a single protocol event.
According to Knežević's interpretation, Serbian national team members do not only represent themselves, but the country, and therefore they are obliged to "respect the coat of arms, the flag, the anthem and all other state symbols of our country, they must also respect the institutions of the state - the President of the Republic, the Government, ministers and other state bodies in the broadest sense".
Knežević stated that during the previous 30 years the Association had met with various authorities and presidents, but that, as he claims, nothing similar had ever happened and that the national team members had previously respected the institutions without exception.
The problem with such an explanation is that the line between respecting an institution and showing respect to a particular politician suddenly becomes quite blurred.
The President of the Republic is a state institution, but Aleksandar Vučić is not just an abstract function of the president. He is also a political figure who has been the central figure of the government in Serbia for more than a decade. That is why the request that the athletes "respect the president" at the reception inevitably has a political dimension, even when it is presented as a matter of state protocol.
Particularly problematic is the part of Knežević's statement in which it is said that, when the national team players put on the jersey of Serbia, they must leave all divisions aside. In principle, the idea that an athlete represents his country at an international competition is not disputed. It is debatable where the representation of the country ends and the demand for representative silence about one's own position begins, because the representative jersey should not mean the suspension of civic identity.
An athlete can be proud of a medal, respect the national anthem and flag, play for Serbia and at the same time not be enthusiastic about the politics of the current government. These things are not mutually exclusive.
If it were otherwise, the state would practically demand from the national team not only sporting performance, but also a certain form of political neutrality, but neutrality which, paradoxically, would be reflected in the mandatory respect of those in power.
Knežević went one step further, recalling the large state investments in sports, from national teams and clubs to sports centers, stadiums and the National Volleyball Center. He especially pointed out that investments in Serbian sports during the last decade and a little longer were at a level that did not exist before and that the government led by Vučić showed a great understanding of the needs of athletes and associations.
That part in itself is not controversial either. State investments in sports exist and it is legitimate to talk about them, but when the enumeration of these investments is found in the same statement in which athletes are criticized for their behavior towards the president, it is difficult not to notice an unpleasant message: the state finances sports, so sports owe the state, that is, its institutions, a certain kind of gratitude.
How sport becomes politics
This is exactly where sport stops being just sport.
It is also interesting that the Association presented the behavior of its national team women as damage to the image of Serbian volleyball.
"I think this caused enormous damage, first of all to the image of Serbian volleyball. Not only to the players or the women's volleyball team, but also to the Volleyball Federation of Serbia and a large number of people who have been trying for years to build volleyball as a healthy, positive sports story, without scandals and incidents," Knežević assessed.
Therefore, a bronze medal, a sixth consecutive European medal and years of top results are not enough to protect the image of the national team if a few minutes of the protocol event are judged inappropriate.
In this logic, the sports result becomes a kind of privilege that comes together with the obligation to publicly demonstrate gratitude.
Perhaps it would be simpler to accept that national team members are not ambassadors of the government, because they represent the country on the sports field. The president can receive them, congratulate them, the state can finance their programs and build infrastructure, and the Federation can be grateful for that. All of this is part of the normal relationship between the state and sports, but it does not follow that the athletes have an obligation to return the politician with a smile, enthusiasm or demonstrative acceptance of his political authority.
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