Yugoslav Draft Defers Laker Center : Vlade Divac Cleared Till ’92 Olympics, Former Club Says

Vlade Divac, Yugoslavia’s star center, has been granted a three-year deferment of his military service, allowing him to play for the Lakers, Yugoslav team sources said today.

Divac, 21, who signed with the Lakers in August and has been working out with them, was later drafted by the Yugoslav army to start his compulsory military service Sept. 19.

The Yugoslav military authorities “have accepted Divac’s request to postpone his military service, and only a few formalities remain to be cleared before the deferment notice is mailed to him to America,” reliable sources in his former Yugoslav club, Partizan, told the Associated Press.

The sources, who demanded anonymity, said he was cleared by the military until the 1992 Olympic Games. The state-run Vecernje Novosti newspaper carried a similar report today, quoting unofficial sources.

“The military does not wish to appear inflexible and to perhaps force Divac to emigrate from Yugoslavia for good,” a draft board official, who declined to be identified, told AP.

“If he emigrated, it would be a great loss for the Yugoslav national team.”

All able-bodied Yugoslav men are obliged by law to serve one year in the military between the ages of 19 and 27. Although most are called up immediately after finishing high school, many top athletes join the service only toward the end of that period.

Failure to report to the military after receiving an official call by the draft board is tantamount to desertion and punishable by a three-year jail term.