Lato is new Poland football federation president.
Lato is new Poland football federation president. Grzegorz Lato was elected Thursday as the president of the national football federation for Poland, which will co-host the 2012 European Championship with Ukraine.
He received the required minimum of 57 votes from 113 delegates to succeed Michal Listkiewicz, who quit amid pressure from an ongoing corruption investigation that has brought match-fixing charges against coaches, federation and club officials, referees and players.
The 58-year-old Lato had previously worked as deputy to Listkiewicz, who served as president since 1999.
“I will not rest until the image of the federation is straightened out and I am not only counting on myself,” Lato said. “I think we all want Polish football to be clean and transparent and we all want Euro 2012 to be a joint success.”
The federation’s dispute with the Polish government over corruption allegations almost resulted in the nation losing its Euro 2012 co-hosting rights and being suspended from World Cup qualifying matches earlier this month.
The government had said the federation was not doing enough to fight corruption in Polish football. Under a motion from Sports Minister Miroslaw Drzewiecki, a court ordered a special administrator to take over control of the federation.
That brought an angry response from FIFA and UEFA, which said the move violated the independence of football from government interference and threatened to suspend Poland’s team. The administrator was soon recalled.
FIFA had a delegate monitoring the election and said it will comment Friday on Lato’s appointment after studying the report.
Lato said analysing the federation’s finances and demonstrating more transparency in running the organization, adjusting its laws to FIFA and UEFA standards, and securing more European Union funds to train young players were among his priorities.
In 2005, prosecutors in the western city of Wroclaw launched an investigation into corruption in Poland’s football. More than 160 people have been charged with fixing matches in the top Polish leagues.
Last week, prosecutors filed 11 counts of corruption charges against former Poland coach Janusz Wojcik.
Lato said his first move will be to meet Drzewiecki to “talk over and clarify the situation.”
“Things cannot calm down without that,” Lato said.
Lato played 100 matches for Poland and was its top scorer in the 1970s. He scored in Poland’s 1-0 win over Brazil in the third-place match at the 1974 World Cup. His team won Olympic gold in 1972 and silver in 1976.
He was also a senator for the former communist Democratic Left Alliance party between 2001-05.
