Ivkovic: "Košarkaškog saveza Srbije skandalozni"
Maybe something was lost in the translation, but the English-language version of the Serbian edition of Blic reports that Team Serbia coach Dusan Ivkovic and all-time great Vlade Divac have leveled some serious verbal fireworks in the direction of the national association.
Today at Blic.rs, Serbia Basketball Association honorary president Bora Stankovic fires back at Ivkovic and, by association Divac, who reportedly backed up the coach on his assessment of “scandalous relations” within the group leadership.
Calling the comments “laughable and sad,” Stankovic assures that Ivkovic’ “accusations simply don’t stand” while defending the record with “the people at the Association must be doing something right. Especially now, when Serbia, a nation which got its independence as recently as two years ago, is back on the European basketball map.”
Stankovic went on the deflect the blame for what Ivkovic and Divac see as problematic onto the individual Serbian professional basketball clubs.
On his part, Divac is reported to have stated that “u Savezu sede neradnici,” a phrase the Blic folks translated as “the Union are slackers.” (Can a Serbian speaker confirm this phraseology…?)
Ivkovic, mostly recently exonerated again back home by squeezing out an astonishing second-place finish at Eurobasket 2009 from a refashioned group of mostly youngsters, an achievement that is among the greatest in his long career.
What Divac said is, that the Basketball Association of Serbia is full of people who do not know about and do not care about basketball as a sport, but do care about basketball as a mean to promote themselves and to pile some serious cash along the way. In a country with GDP of 10000$ per capita sport is one of very, very few ways to ensure yours or your children’s future. And by the way, Divac himself is no saint in all this. The Association is small pond filled with crocodiles and crocodiles know each other for decades. End they cry their tears…