Tuesday, September 02, 2008

New anti-corruption measure to fight bent refs

The Polish Football Association is introducing a new measure fighting corruption among Polish refs and wants them to sign a blank promissory note for a million zlotys each.

The Polish Football Association (PZPN) has announced that by September 3, every Polish referee from the Polish Premier League who wants to keep his job, has to sign a statement saying that he will not set up match results. If caught doing so he will be liable to pay 1 million zlotys.

"Those who will not sign will not be able to referee. End of story,” Head of PZPN’s College of Referees, Slawomir Stempniewski told journalists.

“In general, the referees are against this measure,” a first-league referee, Jaroslaw Zyro commented on the new anticorruption steps in Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper.

Wide-scale corruption in Polish football involving setting up match results was revealed in the course of a few months end of 2007 and beginning of 2008. As a result, several Football Association members, referees, coaches and footballers have heard charges and a few first league football clubs have been downgraded to lower leagues.
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