Water Polo Boycott: Vujasinovic Lacks 12 Euro Champions

The email Vladimir Vujasinovic sent to Serbia’s water polo internationals has three parts: it states where things stand, wishes the players a successful season, and announces that the coach will rely on the squad that won bronze at the Mediterranean Games in Taranto. The message followed talks with captain Nikola Jaksic and Dusan Mandic, after which Vujasinovic concluded that the stance taken in May will not change.

Eleven players from the squad that won the European Championship in Belgrade still refuse to play for the national team while Slobodan Soro heads the Serbian Water Polo Federation. The federation confirmed to Sport Klub that this is the situation.

Who is missing from Vujasinovic’s squad?

Nikola Lukic has joined the list of absentees. He was suspended for a disciplinary offense after the Mediterranean Games. The length of the suspension has not been announced. Lukic was not among the signatories of the May statement, so the number of absentees from the title-winning generation has grown from eleven to twelve. Some headlines therefore speak of eleven players, a figure that is accurate only for the signatories of the boycott.

The following players are currently not in Vujasinovic’s squad:

• Nikola Jaksic
• Dusan Mandic
• Strahinja Rasovic
• Sava Randjelovic
• Djordje Lazic
• Nemanja Vico
• Nikola Dedovic
• Viktor Rasovic
• Petar Jaksic
• Radoslav Filipovic
• Radomir Drasovic
• Nikola Lukic

Of the European champions from Belgrade, the coach counts only on Milan Glusac, Vasilije Martinovic and Milos Cuk. Cuk turns 36 in December, so it is an open question how long he can carry a team that is losing the rest of its generation.

How did the dispute begin?

It all started in May 2026. After the new federation president spoke about the successes in Paris in 2024 and Belgrade in 2026, coach Uros Stevanovic resigned and the players released a joint statement. In it they wrote:

“Our gold medals were not at all a reflection of momentary inspiration, as Slobodan Soro states, but years of great sacrifice, training, togetherness and struggle.”

The players explained their withdrawal in one sentence: “After much thought and conversations among ourselves, we made a unanimous decision to withdraw from playing for the Serbian water polo national team for as long as Slobodan Soro and his team of people are at its helm.”

The federation answered with its own statement, noting that of the eleven signatories only four are current internationals, while the rest are former players. It based that position on the squad Stevanovic named for the February World Cup qualifiers: he called up the Jaksic brothers and Lazic, while Mandic did not show up because of an injury. In the same statement the federation said:

“We are a sports organization, not a political one, and whoever among current or former water polo players, coaches or federation members wants to engage in politics has every right to do so, but what they have no right to do is use their current or former sporting position for those purposes.”

Vujasinovic has been coach since June. He spent the summer working with the team that played at the Mediterranean Games, and he announced talks with the absent players and a hope that time would do its work. Five months after the statement was signed, none of the eleven has changed his decision.

What comes next on the road to the Los Angeles Olympics?

The first test arrives soon. Preparations for the World Cup begin in January, and its winner, after the USA, becomes the second participant in the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. At the World Championship in Budapest, two more of the best teams get a berth, not counting the USA and the World Cup winner. The European Championship is played in early 2028, and the best-placed team without an Olympic berth advances from it, while a qualifying tournament will decide the last three places.

As things stand, Vujasinovic enters January with the squad from Taranto and three European champions.