What was announced has now been officially confirmed at the Electoral Assembly of the Olympic Committee of Serbia - Dejan Tomasevic is the new president of OKS.
Tomasevic was elected unanimously: all 59 delegates were in favor, there were no abstentions or those against. Once a famous basketball player and official in Basketball Federation of Serbia, lately a politician and deputy of the Serbian Progressive Party, had no opponent.
Since the International Olympic Committee does not allow the mixing of politics and sports, Tomasevic previously had to resign from the position of deputy in the Parliament of Serbia, where he represented Serbian progressive party. What Tomašević did on Tuesday, December 9, the resignation was adopted in the Assembly of the Republic of Serbia.
He replaces Božidar Maljković, also a basketball player, who has been the head of the Olympic Committee since 2017. Before him, the president of OKS was the basketball player Vlade Divac.
Field - politics - Olympic chair
Dejan Tomašević's path to the position of OKS president naturally started with a rich basketball career. At the end of his playing career, he was vice president and general secretary of the Basketball Association of Serbia.
Today, people perceive Dejan Tomašević as an actor on the political scene, and not as a former top athlete. Although he officially joined SNS in May 2023, he was active as a sympathizer before, so a year before joining he was one of the "non-party figures" who signed their support for the candidacy of Aleksandar Vučić for the presidency of Serbia.
He played the Tomašević round with pensioners, and then devoted himself to somewhat more serious tasks, such as "stating" in an extremely bizarre video created in Novi Beograd block 70A. In the eyes of many, he fell the most, and in others he gained the most points, when during the incident in the Serbian Parliament in March 2025, he shouted "Ustashe, Ustashe" to the opposition MPs.
At the beginning of October, Tomašević emerged as the main candidate for the position of president of the OKS. The decision was made at the top of the state, Sportklub wrote at the time.
From the basketball court to politics, then through the parliamentary bench to the Olympic chair, that's how Dejan Tomašević's path could be briefly described.
Basketball career
Dejan Tomašević's sports career, unlike his political one, has no blemishes. During his rich sports career, Tomasevic defended the colors of Crvena zvezda, Partizan, Budućnosti, Taukeramika, Valencia, Panathinaikos and PAOK. He was also the champion of Europe with Panathinaikos and twice a member of the top five of the Euroleague.
Tomasevic is one of the most successful Serbian basketball players in modern history. In the national team, he won three European Championships (1995, 1997 and 2001) and two World Championships (1998 and 2002), along with a silver medal at the 1996 Olympic Games.
