The Berbr case a year later: Detectives continue their investigation, the end cannot be predicted

Release of Roman Berbr

Sport.cz/ ČTK

“Some of the accused were supposed to commit these crimes in favor of an organized criminal group,” confirmed Lenka Bradáčová, Prague’s chief state prosecutor, in the first reaction to the police intervention.

Two days later, the District Court for Prague 6 imposed a detention on Roman Berber, even though the 66-year-old vice-president of the FACR, through his lawyer Filip Seifert, denied all allegations. Slavoje Vyšehrad’s sports director Roman Rogoz, referee Tomáš Grimm and former league football player Michal Káník as well, however, they also traveled for the cathedral.

While Káník was released on bail and Rogoz and Grimm left the Pankrác prison also before the expiration of the three-month detention period, Roman Berbr remained in it until 13 January this year.

Sixteen other people involved in a case originally associated only with the manipulation of the results of competitive matches in the second league and in lower competitions and the deployment of referees for individual matches were released or questioned by detectives during Friday and Saturday.

Since then, they have been unraveling the case for a year, which shook the whole of Czech football from the ground up and brought about the destruction of the empire that Roman Berbr had cleverly built over the years and had commanded since the election as vice-president in 2003.

“The case is still under investigation under the supervision of the High Public Prosecutor’s Office in Prague,” Jaroslav Ibehej, a spokesman for the National Headquarters against Organized Crime, confirmed for sport.cz and Právo.

“The end of the investigation cannot yet be predicted,” Lenka Bradáčová, the head of Prague’s chief prosecutors, spoke in the same vein on the eve of the first anniversary of the Berbr case.

Roman Berbr after his release from the Pankrác remand prison.

Milan Malíček, Right

Even from these austere answers, it is clear that the case is likely to grow to a larger size than the fragments of investigative files and police wiretaps that leaked to the public during the year seemed.

It will certainly not stay only with the envelopes crammed with banknotes handed over in the immediate vicinity of the Strahov headquarters. For the famous Berbr family, resp. Královec’s dry toilets, statements captured by police wiretaps before the finals of the MOL Cup between Liberec and Sparta, the highway ending behind Humpolec, Asians from Moravia, words of gratitude for referee Ardeleanu.

It will not just be illegal bets on match results, their interim or final scores, goal scorers in favor of the Balkan and Asian betting mafias, which are entries that also appear in the files.

Berbr is out of prison, he left Pankrác without a word with a bag and a plastic bag in his hand

And it will probably not remain with defrauded finances, while in the case of the Pilsen Regional Football Association, according to detectives, the amount should exceed 800 thousand crowns and in the case of disinfection of football booths by the company of former footballers Bohemians and Jablonec Jiří Tymich by more than ten times, albeit association account returned.

And probably not for the purchased, paid for, but not delivered goods for the women’s football section from the Alea company, even though in this case it was just a “penny”. Less than two million crowns.

House tour at Roman Berbr

Patrick Bishop, Right

They stayed in Strahov after Berbr, who resigned twenty-four hours after being imprisoned for all positions in Czech football, and later ended up as a paid member of the STES Board of Directors, whose sole shareholder is the FACR, other skeletons whose identities are being verified by detectives.

That is why Petr Fousek, a new man in the management of Czech football, does not want to talk about them, let alone comment on them.

Sufficient cases that penetrated the public were enough.

He wants to throw up on them. Better to be silent, Damková attacks the football

The departure of Jan Pauly Jr. from the position of Secretary General with nine salaries, and thus one million crowns as severance pay, which was an indulgence initialed by Fousek’s predecessor in the chairmanship of Martin Malík. He ended up as the first man of Czech football at the Nymburk General Assembly on June 3, but will not end as the General Director of STES until October 31.

The stay of Berbr’s partner and former member of the FACR Executive Committee Dagmar Damková in the UEFA referee committee, which is a boulder that neither Fousek with his good ties to UEFA will roll away, nor the new football leadership.

“Its membership is the sole responsibility of UEFA. We could only ask that Ms. Damková not be included in the quota of the Czech representation in UEFA, “confirmed the chairman of the football association that Dagmar Damková has no position in the FACR and that the Czech football management cannot therefore decide on it.

Czech football decided on its path and direction at the aforementioned General Meeting on June 3, when it gave the new leadership a relatively strong mandate to begin the purge, revival and domestic football “perestroika”.

The referee has already taken place in the jury, to some extent also, also in Fousek’s secretariat, the chairman is announcing further steps …

Probably wiser now in what appears in the police investigation files. After all, the Football Association of the Czech Republic finally acquired the status of an injured person in criminal proceedings, which Fousek’s predecessors Malík, Pauly Jr. and spol. they tried in vain for many months.

The FACR can now make claims for damages, and its agents have also gained access to investigation files.

Roman Berbr and Dagmar Damková.

Vlastimil Vacek, Right

So they could find out what “Cause Berbr” is all about, what is at stake and will be at the trial.

According to a credible source of the Law familiar with the case, the police could close the case by the end of the year, acquaint the accused with the conclusions of their investigation and the file, and most likely file a motion to indict.