Prague, May 15 (CTK) – Czech Olympic Committee (COV) chairman Jiri Kejval suggested Monday that Miroslav Pelta, the Czech Football Association Head (FACR) prosecuted on suspicion of unlawful influencing state subsidies to sports, should consider leaving the post of COV deputy chairman.
Its statutes do not enable the COV to strip Pelta of the post, Kejval said after an extraordinary meeting of the COV executive committee.
Pelta and Simona Kratochvilova, former deputy minister for education, youth and sports, were taken into custody earlier this month over the subsidy fraud scandal.
Pelta subsequently gave up his candidacy for re-election as FACR chairman.
He has not taken any such step in relation to his post of COV deputy chairman, to which he was elected last October.
“It would definitely be good if he considered his departure. If he succeeded in refuting all accusations, he would definitely be welcomed back [in the COV],” Kejval said.
The COV statutes do not anticipate a situation similar to the current one and do not allow the COV executive committee to start an action.
“It is up to the COV plenary session, but the plenary session is due next spring only, or the deputy chairman may consider his departure as a member of the executive committee,” Kejval said.
Kejval said he does not think that Pelta’s departure would solve the difficult situation Czech sport is faced with now that the education minister has suspended most of the subsidies going to sport pending a thorough control of the subsidy programmes involved.
Unlike Pelta, another person accused in the subsidy fraud case, Zdenek Briza, has applied for the suspension of his position as the COV control commission head.
Briza is a former head of the Education, Youth and Sports Ministry’s department for sport.
The COV committee expressed support to him on Monday.
