Another figure that the History of Corruption cannot omit is Miroslav Pelta. Most people know him as a football manager. In reality, however, his interest in sport was not only due to his love of ball games, or, with a bit of cynicism, just his love of “ball” games in a figurative sense. As has been shown in the past and, at the time of writing, has been confirmed by the courts, he saw sport as a convenient tool for covering up corruption and parasitising public finances.
There are many figures who have fed on sport and the non-transparent system of sports subsidies, but Pelta must be singled out for the fact that his power has reached the highest levels of politics. In this respect, perhaps only Miroslav Jansta comes close to him in the Czech Republic.
Suspicions of Pelt’s unfair lobbying and corruption stretch back more than a decade. However, it is only during the period of this chapter that some of the suspicions have been confirmed by investigations by the designated authorities.
The career of the former Jablonec goalkeeper, who scored almost thirty duels in the first league jersey, actually gained momentum after Pelt’s football engagement, after he joined ODS. He became a city councillor and also gained influence over the party’s Prague headquarters.
He was the chairman of the board of FK Jablonec for almost ten years, until 1999. Subsequently, he joined the structures of Sparta Prague, where he became close not only to politicians, but also to well-known oligarchs from the “first league”.
Pelta’s career trajectory continued along the official line through the marketing company of the football association STES back to the structures of FK Jablonec. However, the most important thing in terms of his CV happened in 2011, when he became the head of the entire football association. He was publicly praised by football businessmen; he was credited with several successes and there was clearly a good mood in the sports business structures thanks to him. He also made a name for himself in the Czech Olympic Committee, where he became vice-president for sport.
What is less well known is that the former goalkeeper has been very active in business, especially since he joined ODS. He bought a lot of real estate, and the question is where he got it. In addition, he was also involved in Prosečská investiční. He bought land just before the value of land increased due to political decisions affecting land-use planning.
During his time in sports management, Miroslav Pelta was repeatedly suspected of managing an extensive network of fraudulent practices, the main purpose of which was to manipulate the results of sports matches in favour of betting speculators.
However, a series of suspicions and police investigations did not catch up with Pelta for long. Several suspicions were confirmed, but indirectly or only in peripheral matters without serious consequences. For example, there is the verdict of the disciplinary chamber of the Supreme Administrative Court, which punished judge Sylva Mašínová for her decision in the dispute on the protection of the personality of football officials Roman Berber and Dagmar Damkova. Mašínová admitted that she had a relationship with Miroslav Pelta. He gave her VIP tickets to football matches, air tickets and accommodation abroad. Pelta was supposed to have indirectly influenced the outcome of the above-mentioned dispute.
Several years of fraternization with oligarchs, speculators and organized crime did not lead to Pelta’s indictment, but another of his activities – manipulating decisions on the distribution of sports subsidies – eventually proved fatal. After raiding several institutions responsible for them, Pelta was arrested and sent to detention in May 2017. In 2021, he served a six-year prison sentence, a five-year ban and a $5m fine. Although he continued to defend himself legally, in 2023 the Prague City Court upheld his sentence.
Pelt has been proven to have manipulated a series of subsidy allocations. A sad chapter in this story is the role of the Deputy Minister of Education, Simona Kratochvilová, who was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison, a six-year ban and a $2 million fine. The deputy was the mistress of a Jablonec seladon and, as it turned out, enjoyed a massive feeding frenzy. In total, she was to be persuaded by her partner to manipulate the allocation of subsidies from the Ministry of Education totalling CZK 175 million. In addition to her love affair with Peltá, the case is also peppered with the fact that Kratochvílová was for a time roommates with the former Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) education minister Kateřina Valachová. Valachová downplayed this fact in court and expressed disappointment with Kratochvílová’s character. In reality, however, Pelta was able to get directly into the minister’s private life through his affair.
Although several of the most serious suspicions surrounding Pelta involved monetary corruption, it is tragicomic that for a large part of the manipulation of subsidy or tender procedures, simple “feeding” was sufficient. By this we mean expensive handbags and other luxury goods, trips, holidays, or tickets to sports matches.
Pelta used a private jet to take politicians with him on foreign trips or to football matches. This is how the deputy governor of Liberec Marek Pieter (SLK), deputy governor Lenka Kadlecová (ČSSD), her friend and another social democrat Radek Polma, councillor Vladimír Mastník (STAN), chairman of the Liberec Region’s finance committee Vladimír Richter (ODS), his party colleague and deputy mayor of Jablonec Miloš Vele, and the head of Jablonec’s TOP 09 Petr Roubíček flew with him. Trip fever usually caught Pelta and politicians during periods when decisions were made about the distribution of sports subsidies.
