Criminal investigators intervened at the headquarters of the Czech Speed Skating Association on Tuesday. According to Seznam Správ findings, they took away accounting documents.
Union secretary Jindřich Pařík confirmed the house search. However, he did not specify what evidence the police were looking for. “I will not comment on that,” he said of the police action, about which the union leadership had no prior information.
Some people in the speedskating movement drew attention to union accounting this year. Union member Libuše Steklá filed a criminal complaint against national team coach Petr Novák. She studied the accounts he had submitted to the association for the representative training in Italy and informed the police of the suspicion that he had inflated the costs of the events by at least 700,000.
Seznam Zprávy also found out from sources familiar with the case that the police action at the union’s offices is related to this particular case. The house search lasted about two hours at the union’s office in Strahov, Prague, and was attended by around ten police officers.
List The news opened the case surrounding coach Novák at the end of last year.
They described how the management of the union refused to reimburse part of the invoices to the national team coach because they had serious doubts about how Novák had billed a series of training stays in an Italian hotel.
It also turned out that the union was giving thousands of euros in cash to the training. Without it being clear what he was spending it on.
Petr Novák does not communicate, he blocked the Seznam Zpráv reporter’s phone number.
He previously gave an official statement on the case.
“Unknowingly, I may not have always followed all the administrative manuals, which I admitted several times within the union. However, I have always acted exclusively for the benefit of all competitors, regardless of age and performance, for the benefit of speed skating as a whole,” said Novák already in mid-December in a statement responding to Seznam Zpráv articles.
