When Jiří Kubíček, former vice-president of the football association and an expert in sports law, on his way to the sea in Croatia, learned from the editor of Seznam Zpráv that the former head of Czech football, Miroslav Pelta, had just been found guilty by the court for the third time in the subsidy case, and he continues to face five and half a year in prison, he was surprised. “Fact? I had a feeling from the way they brought it back to court again that it was going to waste,” he reflected. “I’m sorry that Mirek got involved in this in 2017, I don’t wish him a sentence of 5.5 years.”
Footballer Martin Pospíšil was similarly surprised when he learned of Tuesday’s verdict from his wife. “He won’t go behind bars anyway,” he told his wife about the boss who had been his boss in Jablonec for three years.
However, the noose around the Big Stork, as Pelt, an excellent entertainer with connections to political elites, is nicknamed in the football industry, has tightened again. Twenty years after the first huge corruption scandal hit Czech football in 2004 with tragicomic police wiretapping, which later served as the basis for a funny play. And Velký čáp also played a significant role in it, then as general manager of Sparta Prague, although in the end he only figured among the witnesses.
“The most investigated club was not the punished Žižkov of Ivan Horník, but Sparta, which escaped punishment under certain circumstances,” claims Kubíček, who has experienced it like few others in domestic football.
The former director of Sigma Olomouc was with Pelta in the union’s executive committee from the beginning, i.e. right after the revolution. And even before that, they faced each other as goalkeepers in the second league. They have known each other their entire professional lives. “I have beautiful photos,” Kubíček smiles, not because he already feels the fresh wind from the Adriatic Sea.
Those memories of the specific football nineties are both chilling and warm, unrepeatable and nostalgic in a way. “You can tell after years,” he laughs. “It was always fun with Mirek, that’s why he is quoted so much as the Great Stork. When they hurt us at Sparta, Mirek came after the match and said: Sorry, we needed it.”
Time has washed away the guilt, who knows, he knows. “I experienced that time, it was difficult to resist the pressure and I was often on edge. During my 26-year era with Olomouc, we could have been relegated five times, but we managed it,” Kubíček turns to his football journey.
To the good, he will add how he learned how to make the cabin to work from coach Ivan Horník, how he advised him during Sigma’s mutual match in Žižkov to go up to the home team’s dressing room and listen to what speech he would make to the team. “That was great,” he nods.
At Pelta, he admired how he understands football and how much time he dedicates to it. “We always agreed on things in the league or on Brückner, when Sparta didn’t need an advantage,” Kubíček continues to smile.
Don’t get caught so stupidly?
And she cheerfully recounts the story when she and Pelta disagreed. “I drew up guidelines for players’ agents. Leška sat on my right hand, Mirek on the right. We were three representatives for the league. I turned to the right and I say: I hope you will support me, this is for the benefit of the clubs, that the agents will not rub us off, that they will not take out loans that will then be charged to us through the players. Pelta turns to me and says: Jura, I will not support you. You know, I’m very good friends with some of them.”
Pelta was on police tapes in 2004, and his statement that “the whole spring was clinking” became popular. Kubíček remembers how he told him in a friendly way: “Miro, you’re an impeccable boy, you understand football, I hope that you will never, ever, get caught so stupidly because of things in football.”
He promised him that he wouldn’t let him.
In interviews years later, Pelta began to explain that even that clinking spring actually worked because he loves football and does everything for him.
Before jumping to Sparta, he took his beloved Jablonec from the third league to the first. At Letná, he experienced the Champions League and the beginning of the career of talented midfielder Tomáš Rosický. After the departure of Ivan Hašek from the head of FAČR in 2011, he was elected the first man of Czech football. He transported influential businessmen by special plane at the expense of the association to the Champions League matches in Munich at Bayern, where he rented a VIP box. After all, he also flew to meetings in Brno and Ostrava. With Pavel Nedvěd, holder of the Golden Ball for the best footballer on the planet, he also went to China to do football education.
Hundreds of thousands flew through the air figuratively and literally, but he always silenced the critics with a relatively bulletproof argument – he attracted more money to football thanks to contacts, and perhaps even seats in the Bayern club. Not only to Jablonec, but also to the association’s treasury. “Whether I was in Jablonec, Sparta, or at FAČR, I achieved record revenues, I had a balanced financial result, and all my actions must be self-sustaining,” he told Czech Radio at the time.
He loves football and knows how to lobby
Jablonec flourished for a long time under Pelt’s leadership, won European cups, and not only Pospíšil cannot tolerate his boss at the time. “We had a great first year, he turned Jablonec into galacticos in quotes,” he recalls of the inflated lineup. “No matter what everyone says about him and I perceive them negatively by the public, I have only had good experiences. I worked under him for over three years, I will never say a negative word about him. He always said what he said. It didn’t even have to be on paper, he kept everything.”
And he gives an example: “When I was transferring to Jagiellonia, he told me that he still needed me to extend my contract, but if the offer came again, that he would let me go. And that’s exactly what happened.”
He also does not forget to mention the passion with which Pelta plays football. “Jablonec is a child for him, he loves football and gives it a lot. He was happy with the results we got. When things went well, he gave double bonuses or other incentives. And when things didn’t go well, he didn’t fly into the cabin at halftime, but the week after practice. But no yelling. He’s funny, I enjoyed hanging out with him.’
Pospíšil, who also got a taste of the Champions League and peeked into the national team, will be euphoric from progressing in the preliminary round of the Europa League over FC Copenhagen nine years ago. After the 0:1 defeat at home, Pelta was already counting on elimination. But the midfielder told him: “You’ll see, we’ll surprise you.”
After the 3:2 win, in which Pospíšil contributed with a goal, they then sparred together. “You were right!” cheered the boss.
The players did not blame him for the delayed payments, as they knew that Pelta would keep his word. “Even though I transferred to Poland, he still paid me everything over time, down to the last crown,” notes Pospíšil.
Apple tree without Pelta?
What would happen to the Jablonec club if Pelta ended up behind bars, the club does not comment. “Until there is a final judgment, we will not comment on the proceedings on behalf of FK Jablonec,” said press spokesman Martin Bergman.
“I think that Jablonec will never be completely without Mr. Pelta. He would control it even remotely from prison,” believes Pospíšil. “He is already teaching his people, in whom he has 100% trust, even from the family environment.”
Pelta knew how to raise money not only for football. As a Jablonec councilor for the ODS in 2008, he bought a meadow and a field on Proseč, or 250,000 square meters, which was advantageously acquired by the company Prosečská investiční, which, in addition to Pelta, was owned by his wife Simona, former Jablonec representative for the ODS Ivo Bartoněk and his wife Jaroslava. The first part of the land was turned into building plots when both Pelta and Bartoněk were sitting in the Jablonec council. They planned the Futurum project, the construction of a dozen family houses. Land values tripled.
“The business was good, except that he then had to hand everything over to his wife, otherwise they would take it away from him,” continues Kubíček. “Mirek in Jablonec has already assessed his negotiating and political ambitions. If you can subdue politicians who make subsidies, that’s an advantage. And Mirek was excellent at lobbying.”
But he also ran into him. He did not keep the promise he made to Kubíčk. In 2017, the subsidy case broke out, and Kubíček just shook his head: “Dude, Miro, now you’ve licked it even for the past time.”
When they met last year at Bohemka, where Peltův Jablonec visited, they greeted each other again in a friendly manner. Kubíček also asked him about his concerns about the verdict. “You know, Jura, it’s complicated, but I believe.”
The Prague Municipal Court agreed with the indictment that the then-lovers Pelt and Kratochvílova influenced the allocation of money to 18 specific applicants of the program for material and technical support of sports clubs in 2017. In addition to 5.5 years in prison, Pelt was also fined five million euros and banned from corporate management for five years. Even the third verdict in the case of manipulation of state sports subsidies is not final, the defendants deny the guilt and have appealed.
“I was a small master in influencing the subsidy procedure,” Pelta said in his closing speech in court last year.
Even Kubíček does not dare to judge whether the Great Stork has harmed football more than it has helped.
“Football-wise, the positives outgrow, but given that Mirek got caught in two affairs, the result is zero. It also damaged football,” he admits, adding that he would not give negative values to Pelt for his activities in football.
The sea is already close, the sun is burning and life is nice. Just somehow wait for those moments when the sun goes down somewhere. “Mirek is a millionaire to the party. Sitting at the table with him, for example at the UEFA draw, was lovely. He is very funny. “If he had stayed in football and not had a ringworm, he would have been more successful in show business than Švancar,” suspects Kubíček. “Mirek was himself, he was unstoppable.”
The big stork and the little gentleman, that could be the name of a fable.
Just find the appropriate lessons.
