Former Czech football coach sentenced to prison again for fraud

PRAGUE – The former head of the Czech Football Association was again convicted of fraud on Tuesday and sentenced to five and a half years in prison.

The Prague City Court also fined Miroslav Pelta five million Czech crowns ($221,000) and barred him from holding any managerial position for five years.

The court made the ruling in a retrial of the case after imposing similar sentences on Pelta in 2021 and 2023. An appeals court overturned those rulings and sent the case back to the original court.

In the same case, the court also sentenced former Deputy Education Minister Simona Kratochvilova to six years in prison, banned her from holding public office for six years and fined her two million Czech crowns ($88,000).

The two pleaded not guilty and can still appeal.

The case dates back to 2017, when police raided the headquarters and offices of FK Jablonec, a provincial football club partly owned by Pelta.

The public prosecutor's office cited investigations into suspected fraud in connection with state subsidies at Pelta as the reason for the raids.

The court said Pelta used his personal relationship with Kratochvilova to influence who would receive state subsidies worth 176 million Czech crowns ($7.8 million). Pelta resigned from his post a month after his arrest in May 2017.

Education Minister Katerina Valachova also resigned because of the scandal, although she appeared as a witness rather than a suspect.