WARSAW: Poland’s suspended football federation reached a last-minute deal with the government yesterday in a bid to avoid a suspension by FIFA and a possible loss of the co-hosting rights to the 2012 European Championship.
“We have reached an agreement with the government,” federation president Michal Listkiewicz told The Associated Press. “I can’t say anything more because we have to wait on FIFA’s reaction.”
FIFA gave Poland until noon (1000 GMT) yesterday to reinstate the Polish Football Federation’s governing board or face suspension from two upcoming World Cup qualifiers. UEFA has warned it could strip Poland of its hosting rights of European football’s showcase event in 2012 if no deal is struck. Poland is due to co-host the tournament with Ukraine.
Michal Kleiber, the head of a four-member board set up in 2007 to help organize elections for a new federation board, said the government and football officials were nearing a deal.
“A certain consensus has been reached,” Kleiber was quoted as saying by the Polish PAP news agency. “The chance for it to be implemented I put at 90 percent.”
Zbigniew Kozminski, spokesman for the federation’s suspended board, told reporters the government and federation had exchanged documents, translated them into English and sent them to FIFA in Switzerland and were now awaiting a response.
FIFA spokesman Pekka Odriozla said the sport’s world body was examining information it had received from Poland.
“We are not in a position to make further statements at this stage,” Odriozla said.
The Polish federation’s governing board was suspended last week after a ruling by the Polish Olympic Committee’s arbitration court. Robert Zawlocki was appointed temporary chief of the federation.
UEFA spokesman William Gaillard called that move “an abuse of our trust” that can lead to “very, very serious consequences.” “The feeling really is that they are thinking that we are all fools,” Gaillard told The Associated Press yesterday. “It’s extremely difficult to organize the Euro in Poland and Ukraine. If we made them stick to the commitments they signed in April 2007, they would be in trouble, terrible trouble, already,” Gaillard said.
“We’ve done absolutely everything and more to make sure they can organize it, and the first thing they do is deceive our trust and go back on a commitment they made a year and a half ago to FIFA.”
Poland is due to play the Czech Republic on Oct. 11 and Slovakia four days later in qualifiers for the 2010 World Cup. If the government and federation fail to hammer out an agreement, Poland will be forced to forfeit both matches, and 3-0 victories will be awarded to the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
