SEPTEMBER 30 – FOOTBALL’S top governing bodies FIFA and UEFA said today they do not recognise a new administrator appointed by the Polish Olympic Committee (POC) to head the country’s football federation.
It leaves a serious question-mark over whether UEFA will continue to allow Poland to host the European Championships in 2012, which they are due to stage jointly with Ukraine.
The event was already in jeopardy because UEFA were unhappy with how slow preparations for the event were going.
Scotland are among the countries to have expressed a willingness to step in at the last minute if needed.
The decision by the tribunal of the POC, which oversees sports in Poland, to dismiss PZPN head Michal Listkiewicz was made at the request of Sports Minister Miroslaw Drzewiecki.
Drzewiecki said last night he had acted because of “a lack of effectiveness in the fight against corruption”.
But in a joint statement, UEFA and FIFA said that they “do not recognise either the decision by the arbitration court of the Polish National Olympic Committee, or the appointment of an ‘administrator’ of the PZPN.
“FIFA and UEFA continue to recognise the current leadership of the PZPN chaired by Michal Listkiewicz as the only legitimate authority to run football in Poland and to represent it internationally.”
Earlier this year FIFA briefly suspended Iraq from international competition following Government intervention into the running of football in the country.
The two bodies said they would immediately start joint consultations on measures to be taken surrounding football in Poland, which will be proposed at the next FIFA Executive Committee meeting in Zurich on October 23-24.
Polish football has been marred for over three years by repeated match-fixing scandals, with 120 individuals already prosecuted or facing trial, and a handful of clubs from various divisions have been relegated as punishment for graft.