Foundation stone laid for National Volleyball Training Centre in Serbia

The official foundation stone laying ceremony for the state-of-the-art National Volleyball Training Centre in Belgrade, Serbia recently took place with representatives from the Serbian government, National Olympic Committee officials, members of the global Volleyball Family, athletes and other distinguished guests celebrating the milestone occasion.

The completion of the construction works of the National Volleyball Training Center is scheduled for May 2025. (Photo credits: OSS)

During the ceremony, the foundation stone was laid by the Prime Minister of Serbia, Ana Brnabić, and the Minister of Sports, Zoran Gajić, as well as the Serbian women’s national team captain Ana Bjelica and men’s national team player Bogdan Tomašević.

The ceremony was also attended by other members of the global Volleyball Family, including the FIVB 2nd Executive Vice-President and European Volleyball Confederation (CEV) President Aleksandar Boričić, FIVB General Director Fabio Azevedo, FIVB Head of Technical and Development Steve Tutton, Volleyball Federation of Serbia (OSS) President Gyula Mester, OSS Secretary General Ivan Knežević, and representatives from the women’s and men’s senior national teams of Serbia.

Serbian national team players joined the ceremony alongside representatives from the Serbian government and FIVB (Photo credits: OSS)

In addition, the delegation of the Ministry of Sports, led by Zoran Gajić, included State Secretary for Sports Marko Kešelj, Special Advisor to the Minister of Sports Dejan Bojović and Chief of Staff Jovan Knežević. Representatives from the Olympic Committee of Serbia (OKS) also attended the ceremony, including President Božidar Maljković, General Secretary Žarko Zečević and Vice President Milutin Popović.

As part of ceremony, Minister of Sports Zoran Gajić hosted a reception at the Palace of Serbia for members of the global Volleyball Family, including delegations from the FIVB, CEV and OSS, fostering further collaboration within the volleyball community. He also announced that the completion of the construction works of the National Volleyball Training Center is scheduled for May 2025.

Representatives from the global Volleyball Family joined the ceremony (from left to right: FIVB Head of Technical and Development Steve Tutton, CEV President Aleksandar Boričić and FIVB General Director Fabio Azevedo) (Photo credits: OSS)

FIVB 2nd Executive Vice-President and CEV President Aleksandar Boričić said:

“For sure, all members of the Serbian volleyball community are very happy today. This was a long lasting dream for us, and now it is reality. New generations of players will have great conditions to prepare and work well, but I have to point out that even before, when we did not have such an ideal circumstances, we managed to pull out some great results.

“So, the management of the Volleyball Federation of Serbia and coaches will have to work hard and change a lot of things in order to beat the previous results, we know that you cannot do much better than they have been doing to win the World Championship, but we have to keep these excellent results coming.”

FIVB General Director Fabio Azevedo said:

“For us, this is a historic day. We are fighting to ensure our athletes can train and play in the best conditions all the time. This Centre of Excellence that Serbian Government is constructing here, for Serbian athletes and for volleyball in Serbia is remarkable.

“I am sure that this will be one of the greatest projects ever built for our sport in the country. CEV President Aleksandar Boricic has described it as a dream of his generation, to which I agree! This is the dream of athletes in Serbia coming true. I believe that future is bright, and I wish Serbia all the best as the FIVB continues to offer its partnership and friendship to contribute to the success of this project.”

Volleyball Federation of Serbia President Gyula Mester said:

“I think this is a historic day for us, and a dream come true for all generations of volleyball players. Our teams will have optimal conditions to prepare well and hopefully win many more medals in the future. This is a big deal also for our federation, because we will soon have top level infrastructure all in one place. I want to thank our Government and President of the Republic of Serbia who helped us to turn this idea into reality. This is a great motivation for all of us to bring even more energy into our work.”