Known football referees arrested

Arrested referee Grzegorz G./Image courtesy of "Fotorzepa"/rp.pl

Another shocking arrest in the world of Polish fotball. It seems as if the corruption scandal is taking greater swings. This time it involves much respected referees, in the world of football, from Poland.

Two Ekstraklasa referees were arrested by the CBA (Central Anticorruption Bureau) and are under suspicion of accepting bribes.

One of them is Grzegorz G., a trusted and respected referee in Europe. He was one of the candidates to take part in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

The other arrested person is his assistant referee Tomasz S.

Both were handed over to the main corruption prosecutors located in Wroclaw, Lower Silesia, where they will hear charges.

Grzegorz G. refereed games including the U-17 World Cup, World Cup and European Championship qualification games of senior teams, but also Champions League and UEFA Cup games. He was the 4th official at three games during the EURO 2008.

Over 170 people including, officials, board members of the Polish FA, referees and famous football managers have been arrested as a result of the ongoing corruption scandal that started in 2005.

Beach, Sun, Cocktails and… Hooligans

Hooligans will not take part in the EURO2008, instead the EU planned something else for them. I talked to a hooligan in the scene to see what they think about this plan.

Ahead of the EURO2008, Franco Frattini the European Commissioner for Security, came up with the idea to work together with the supporters in order to prevent violent incidents in the future.

The special plan would be to send all the hooligans on holiday or on team building activities during the EURO2008 and the upcoming major footballing events.

Austria and Switzerland are preparing for the football tournament of the year.

Media from “safe nations”, already blame other countries for causing the hooligan problems.

During the World Cup in Germany, the local press pointed the fingers at the violent Polish fans. This time around it is the Austrian press, who points at two, Poland and Croatia.

Police will work together with colleagues from Germany, Poland, and other qualified football nations, to prevent violence.

Co-operation amongst different institutions dealing with this problems will be inevitable. “No single agency can tackle the problem alone” says Frattini. Therefore it is time to to work with…the hooligans.

“No, Thanks!” says a hooligan from the scene. “It will not make us disappear.”

The hooligan mentality in most cases relies on opposing the establishment and “hools dont care about money and their entire way of life is exactly against this money buying and political thing”.

Bribing them away from their favourite sport will not be very popular.

The mentality of the hooligans was always to “create atmospehere in the stadiums”, with their different choreographies and the sea of flares, for every game.

Politicians in many countries banned flares and other pyrotechnical devices from stadiums, because of their danger to mass events. This did not stop, but only heated up the tensions.

The “trouble-makers with criminal backgrounds” as Frattini says, are not prepared to co-operate. “First, he needs to change his mentality towards us”, but “lighting a flare is not crminial. Calling us criminal will not help, and its just sad. They dont really wanna face the truth.” the hooligan says.

Hooligans and Ultras are not prepared to be bribed, by the establishment they oppose, into leaving their beloved activity behind.

It takes more to understand the mentality and the culture of such groups.

EURO2008 Groups

Four groups for the EURO2008 tournament in Austria and Switzerland were drawn today in Lucerne, Switzerland. Some interesting constellations were formed that will keep you on the edge of the seat.

The groups are as follows:

Group A:
Switzerland
Czech Republic
Portugal
Turkey

Group B:
Austria
Croatia
Germany
Poland

Group C:
Holland
Italy
Romania
France

Group D:
Greece
Sweden
Spain
Russia
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Group B the derby group. Poland will face their eternal rivals, Germany. And then also Germany and Austria the “Big Brother” derby.

Group C officially the group of death. Unfortunately, this is where the train terminates for one of the big teams. No need to go into further details.

Pressure cooker Euro 2008

Having followed most of the games last weekend I was quite conviced of the obvious pressure growing on big guns in football. What does that mean to the development of football in Europe?

Some think it is natural as qualifiers are coming to an end, pressure will grow. Many powerful football nations such as Italy, Portugal were struggling Even Holland’s unbeaten run found an end to a nation which has been one of the underdogs. Is this some kind of complex only affecting the big guns? No, this cannot possibly be the only reason for such failure. It is the continuing struggle of underdog countries in the UEFA zone, to become more present in forming the future of football.

Countries with a less sucessfull footballing trackrecord have stolen the show during the Euro 2008 qualifications. Poland, Romania, Scotland and even nations like Armenia have shown what they are capable of producing on the pitch, although Armenia lost its chance to qualify. It is something that should make football followers and experts happy as it shows development and growing capability of small teams winning and achieving more goals than anticipated.

As the weekday games approach, will the stars be able to show what they have kept hidden until now and will they be able to cope with pressure? Or will the minorities still hold the upper hand in terms of footballing and wins? In any case, it will be a base for the positive development of football among struggling teams in Europe.