FA President Corruption scandal

2nd December 2011

The reputation of Polish football got another dragging through the mud this week after the head of the Polish football association found himself mired in a corruption scandal.

Grzegorz Lato, once a star of the great Polish team of the 1970s, had to appear before a parliamentary committee after a video surfaced apparently showing him and his deputy, Zdzislaw Krecina, talking about how they could profit from the construction of a new headquarters for the association.

Mr Lato denied any wrongdoing before calling the meeting to halt because, he said, he had to fly to Ukraine.

He flew knowing that Joanna Mucha, the new sports minister, wants his head on a platter. On seeing the video, Ms Mucha said it was “clear and obvious to any normal person that anybody participating in the recordings [should hand in their resignation]; on the other hand I expect dismissals will take place.”

Krecina had already been shown the door, although the football association (PZPN) failed to provide an explanation for his dismissal.

But it looks as if Mr Lato might be saved owing to next year’s Euro 2012 football championship. With just seven months to go before kickoff, the government appears to have opted to stick with him despite the corruption allegation in preference to dealing with the embarrassing diplomatic fallout his sacking would induce.

“We are in a very particular time before the Euro 2012 and any abrupt moves are not advisable,” Pawel Gras, the government spokesman, told Polish radio. “But when the games end, I think we will have to heal this situation somehow.”

The scandal has delivered another blow to the increasingly creaking and rickety PZPN.

Over the past few years it has had to deal with a never ending stream of corruption and match fixing allegations that have led to hundreds of officials, referees and players being jailed or coming under investigation.

The PZPN also faces accusation that it has done too little to counter the culture of hooliganism that still plagues the Polish game.

A public opinion poll by Millward Brown SMG/KRC found that 52 percent of Poles want the PZPN dissolved while only 36 percent opposed the idea. In the same poll 67 percent of respondents said that Lato should resign.