PRAGUE — The former head of the Czech Republic soccer affiliation was convicted of fraud on Thursday and sentenced to 6 years in jail.
Prague’s Municipal Court additionally fined Miroslav Pelta 5 million Czech crowns ($235,000) and banned him from an government place for 5 years.
The court docket issued the decision in a retrial of the case after it handed Pelta the identical sentence in 2021. An appeals court docket canceled that ruling and returned the case again to the unique court docket.
In the identical case, the court docket additionally sentenced Simona Kratochvilova, a former deputy training minister, to six-and-a-half years in jail, banned her from working in public workplaces for six years and fined her 2 million Czech crowns ($94,000).
A state prosecutor demanded 9 and 10 years in jail for Pelta and Kratochvilova, respectively.
The two have denied wrongdoing and nonetheless can enchantment.
The case dates to 2017 when police raided the affiliation headquarters and the workplaces of FK Jablonec, a provincial soccer membership partly owned by Pelta.
Prosecutors stated the explanation for the raids was investigating fraud involving Pelta in reference to state subsidies.
The court docket stated Pelta used his private relationship with Kratochvilova to affect who would obtain state subsidies, trying to trigger injury price nearly 176 million Czech crowns ($8.3 million). Pelta resigned from his submit a month after he was detained in May 2017.
Also, Education Minister Katerina Valachova resigned due to the scandal although she was not a suspect however a witness.
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