Fifa And Uefa Reject New Poland Board

Poland’s position as joint host nation with Ukraine for Euro 2012 looks in even more doubt after both FIFA and UEFA refused to recognise the new Polish Football Federation administration put in place by the country’s government.

The governing board of the Polish Football Federation was suspended by its court-appointed chief for allegedly failing to tackle corruption in the domestic league.

The suspension of the Polish Football Federation was made after a ruling by the Poland Olympic Committee’s arbitration court. The court named Robert Zawlocki as temporary chief of the federation in response to a critical motion submitted by the Ministry of Sport.

Zawlocki, a lawyer who once worked for the federation’s disciplinary committee, announced he had suspended the current board and canceled elections for 30th October to choose the federation’s new leadership.

In response to the move both FIFA and UEFA issued statements saying they would not recognise Zawlocki or the new leadership, sticking to their policy of rejecting government intervention in footballing matters.

The statement from both governing bodies said further action would be considered when the FIFA executive committee meets in Zurich on 23rd-24th October, with UEFA’s emergency panel due to meet around the same time.

Poland were threatened with being thrown out of qualifying for Euro 2008 when the PZPN was suspended in January 2007.

FIFA said it would ignore any correspondence from the newly-installed board while UEFA had already warned the administrators of both host nations that the preparations for Euro 2012 were significantly behind schedule.

Unless the situation is resolved swiftly it seems likely that UEFA will be forced to move the hosting of the tournament to another country – the list of potential hosts being significantly reduced by the short time frame in which to get the tournament up and running.