Jan Starka and the Příbram club are apparently accused of legalizing the proceeds of crime.
In 2020, funds arrived and then left again from the club account, namely 2.42 million crowns, which the police connect with the Disinfection case, i.e. with the alleged attempt to tunnel the funds of the Football Association of the Czech Republic.
It paid the Tymich company almost 10 million crowns for the disinfection of football booths in an event sponsored by the fight against covid. The money then went on from the Tymich company. And according to the police, they sailed through an intermediary to the Příbram cash register.
“Can I call you in half an hour?” asked Jan Starka when he found out that a Seznam Zpráv reporter was calling him. He didn’t call, then he didn’t pick up the phone and he didn’t respond to messages. Even the club’s spokesperson did not respond to the e-mail sent.
However, Jan’s father Jaroslav Starka picked up the phone: “The boy was not at any interrogation. What the police want and what the facts are are different. I consider their construction to be pointless,” he said.
In November, it will be 16 years since the event when the Příbram entrepreneur Jaroslav Starka was spectacularly arrested by the police on the highway. Starka then spent many months in pre-trial detention due to the suspicion that he was involved in the kidnapping of Radovan Krejčíř’s father. It wasn’t proven, there wasn’t even a trial.
Jaroslav Starka was associated with organized crime many times, but he was convicted in only one case, already in the 1980s for stealing socialist-owned property.
Now his son Jan Starka, the owner and statutory representative of the Příbram second division club, is facing a confrontation with the law. His father also continues to work in it, but only in the honorary capacity of club president.
“I know what the police know and what they can do, so I don’t want to comment more on that. That’s a matter for lawyers,” Jaroslav Starka glossed over the current case.
A few days ago, the Police of the Czech Republic announced that they are prosecuting 6 individuals and 4 legal entities in connection with the Disinfection case, in which there may have been an attempt to tunnel the funds of the Football Association of the Czech Republic. She accused them of fraud and legalization of proceeds of crime.
Among those prosecuted in this case is also Roman Berbr, the former vice-chairman of the FAČR, who since October 2020 has been facing other charges of corruption and embezzlement.
In essence, he was already accused of a possible attempt to tunnel FAČR funds in a report by the FAČR Review and Control Commission, which was first reported in December 2020 by Seznam Zprávy.
It was about the fact that Berbr initiated the conclusion of a contract between the FAČR and the Tymich company, that he would disinfect cabins in 90 clubs for less than 10 million crowns.
As the Audit and Control Commission of the FAČR found out, the price was exorbitant, and in addition, the company of former football player Tymich did not actually disinfect even half of the contracted number of changing rooms. Nevertheless, she invoiced herself for the full contracted performance, and she was also reimbursed for that. In the amount of 9.89 million crowns.
When the critical report of the commission was presented, there was a panic in the leadership of FAČR. As part of the settlement agreement, the Tymich company returned 6.8 million crowns to the FAČR coffers, and also paid a fine of 2.4 million crowns. And she had less than 700,000 crowns left.
After this case was made public, the police began to look into it. And the detectives of the National Central Office against Organized Crime from the expository in Ústí nad Labem began to untangle other routes of the aforementioned funds.
Apparently, they continued after leaving the FAČR account to the account of the company Tymich. This part of the search and its results was described in February as the first irozhlas. He informed that the Tymich company sent 4.74 million crowns to a subcontractor, which was a cleaning company run by fitness trainer David Huf.
And another 4 million went to the account of Proparts Group. This is a small artisan company from Klášterec nad Ohří, which was run by Pavel Simandl, the father of Tymich’s son-in-law Pavel Simandl Jr., an MMA wrestler in his spare time. He is also a link to Huf’s cleaning company, Huf is his friend from the fitness studio.
It is significant that the sum of 2,420,000 crowns went to the Příbram football club from the Proparts Group.
It was supposed to be a payment for advertising. At the same time, the investigator was interested in the fact that a small company, running small crafts in Klášterec nad Ohří, would order advertising at the football stadium in Příbram, 170 km away from Klášterec.
Here, suspicions could arise that the money was just flowing from account to account. Whether they should have continued further, for example to the possible mastermind of the whole operation, can only be speculated about.
At the moment when the FAČR Audit and Control Commission came up with its report and suspected tunneling, according to irozhlas, the described funds from Příbram, from the Proparts Group and from Huf’s cleaning company began to be returned to the Tymich company, which then returned them to the Football Association of the Czech Republic.
As part of the criminal prosecution, which is conducted in this case, FAČR acts as the injured legal entity.
“I registered that the matter appeared and asked the management of FAČR for more information. But I haven’t received them yet,” says Jan Eisenreich, chairman of the FAČR Ethics Commission.
Criminal prosecution in itself should not in any way complicate the further participation of the Příbram football club in II. league. “I will answer in general: In the framework of the licensing procedure, only insolvency proceedings or bankruptcy, which would concern one of the licensed clubs, are defective. Criminal prosecution of the club as a legal entity is not,” stated Stanislav Rýznar, licensing manager of FAČR.
