A vicious circle - Polish football scandal - 2008

Football has a very long tradition in Poland and it is especially popular

among the population of this eastern European country. Nearly half a million
of Poles play football on regular basis, while the number of occasional
players is probably twice as big. Polish Football Association was founded in
1904 and the first official match was played several years after.
The first professional clubs, such as: Wisla Krakow, KS Cracovia, Pogon
Lwow, Lechia Lwow and many others, were established in the next years.
The golden period of Polish football was in the seventies of the 20th century,
when the country was a part of the Eastern Bloc, but it did not disturb thenteam players to achieve great results. They won the first place at the 1972
Olympics in Germany and were finalists of the Olympic Games in Canada
four years later. As for the World football championships, Poland team won
third place twice, in 1974 in West Germany and in 1982 in Spain. That was
their most successful positioning. The team has not had significant success
in European championships.
Meanwhile, the Polish football has developed as well as almost in all
parts of Europe. Ekstraklasa or former Polish First League was established in
1927, which has 16 teams. In recent years, it is dominated by Legia from
Warsaw and Wisla from Krakow. It is not strange to happen that smaller clubs
spoil the game for the large teams and win the title, as Slask Wroclaw did.
Legion and Leh play big derbies, because they have the most numerous fan
base. The positive performances of the Poles are grit and running, but they
are weaker in tactics. By its quality, the league is right behind the Russian
and Ukrainian. The organization is at a high level, clubs travel by bus and
quarantine is obligatory. French Canal Plus is the sponsor of the entire league
and matches are monitored with twenty cameras. All the stadiums have
spotlights and heaters so that the conditions are phenomenal. One game on
Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays is directly broadcasted from the mobile unit,
and in the evening they have a special, very popular and watched show, with
guests analyzing matches in the studio, reviewing the most beautiful goals.
Every footballers contract contains a clause that prohibits betting.
It is very important to note, because Poland was rocked by one of the
biggest scandals in the history of football in the period 2005 - 2008. At
almost the same time as the Italians were faced with the Calciopoli scandal,
the match-fixing scandal that shook Poland was involving over 700 people,
dozens of clubs, judges, high profile sport officials and football officials.

Before we continue, let us to remind you how the match-fixing started,

in general. Fixing the football matches was first mentioned in 1960, when UK
legalized sports betting and it did not take a long time for the first serious
scandals to happen. The first of scandals was recorded in 1964 when the
small group of English football players, led by Jimmy Gauld fixed the match
between Sheffield Wednesday and Ipswich. Three players of Sheffield, who
participated in a fixed defeat of their club, were banned from football for life.
Match-fixing was only in its early years then, while in the coming period it
became completely entwined with the football reality.

As for Poland, it all started back in 2005 when the police authorities in
Wroclaw started to investigate allegations of match-fixing in the Polish
football championship. As is the case grew bigger, political officials have
uncovered 29 clubs from the Polish league directly involved in match-fixing in
the season 2004/05, and even in previous years. During the campaign 117
people were accused of match-fixing, bribing referees and players, and
illegal operations and running of football clubs.
In the center of the scandal was then president of the Polish Football
Association Michal Listkiewicz who, as a leading figure of the highest official
football organization in Poland, had to face the consequences. He was a
former football referee elected for president of the Polish Football Association
in 1999, around the same time as the most powerful football administrator
of today - Sepp Blatter. Michal Listkiewicz was known as a bon vivant and
could be seen, in many occasions, following the matches with a cigar in his
mouth.
Before the official accusations of the match-fixing at the beginning of
2006, Ministry of Sport of the Republic of Poland officials warned the Football
Association to pay more attention to the events in Polish football because it
was clear that the matches have been fixed and that those criminal activities
have a much broader scope than previously thought. Michal Listkiewicz was
not taking any notice of this suggestion. When Wit elazko, one of the
members of the Polish Football Association, was arrested in 2007 the secret
behind the match-fixing had started to unravel. FIFA has sided with the Polish
Football Association under the motto that no one should interfere in the
internal affairs of the League, but Polish Prime Minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski,
thought differently. Although a big fan of football he wanted to get in the way
of football crime and to break Polish football away from the hands of the
mafia, even at the cost of losing the football as a game and leaving hundreds
of thousands of people disappointed.

In mid-September 2008, the entire football association, i.e. association

officials, has resigned, some 2-3 months before the elections for the top
administrative body in the Polish football.
The final epilogue was that 50 people were suspended from football,
eight clubs have been moved to the lower leagues, and some score points
were taken away. Widzew Lodz, a multiple winner of the Polish football
championship, was among suspended clubs. Finally, the Polish Government
has abolished the suspension of the Football Association operations, in order
to retain the organization of the European football championship in 2012,
which was co-hosted together with Ukraine and seriously questioned at that
point.