POLAND SETS FIGHTING CORRUPTION HIGHER THAN FOOTBALL INTERESTS
1) Poland sets fighting corruption higher than football interests 2) Fallen Italian football president can continue in the IOC 3) Sports minister in Togo refused to punish volley leader for FIVB 4) In Finland illegal doping drugs now arrive by courier 5) Scandal upon scandal in Macedonian football 6) Founder member of Play the Game withdraws from 2008 7) Fears in Ukraine for neo-nazi influence on football 8) Feyenoord questions whether a club can be responsible for hooligans 9) Football fans assault radio reporter in Brazil
Football has become the first target in an anti-corruption drive in Poland. A few weeks ago the Polish sports minister suspended the entire board of the Polish Football Association (PZPN) after one member was arrested on suspicion of corruption and match fixing. The price for the action may be high but the government is willing to pay.
For Franco Carraro, 2006 was a roller coaster. He resigned as president of the Italian Football Federation because of the match fixing scandal in Italian football last summer. Then he was banned from sport leadership for 4.5 years. But appeal after appeal diminished the punishment and now the IOC Ethics Commission has also given him a clean bill of health.
The sports minister in the African country of Togo has refused a request from the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) to exclude a vice president of Togo’s volleyball federation after he had taken part in the founding congress of the new international World Volleyball and Beach Volleyball Federation (WVBF).
In Finland drugs for sports doping are increasingly arriving by couriers rather than by mail or air freight. Last year customs officers at the Helsinki-VantaaAirport uncovered 72 cases of doping substance crimes, and in some cases the smugglers had more than 10,000 hormone ampoules or tablets in their checked luggage.
Imagine a country where football clubs have not legally registered their players, where the national football federation has ordered thousands of jerseys and shorts with false PUMA trademarks and the top official in the federation has obtained his job with a false university degree. If media reports are to be believed this country is Macedonia.
The National Olympic Committee and Sports Confederation of Denmark has decided to withdraw from Play the Game from 2008 because Play the Game has not yet succeeded in attracting permanent funding from the Nordic countries such as it was envisioned from the beginning.
Whilst the wider football community in Europe may think of Ukraine mainly in terms of its joint bid with Poland for the European Championships in 2012, Ukrainian Ultras Against Racism now urges the very same football community to speak out against attempts by Ukrainian neo-nazi groups to increase their influence amongst football fans.
The behaviour of violent fans at a match in Nancy last November has cost the Dutch club Feyenoord its place in the 2006/07 UEFA Cup. The club feels let down by the police that was warned that banned supporters were on their way to France, and the club will now appeal the UEFA decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Rafael Serra, a reporter from Radio Gaucha in Brazil, was beaten up by fans from the Gremio football club when he went to cover the arrival of the team’s new goalkeeper in the airport of Porto Alegre.
