Protective thicket Martin Podhajský in the jersey of the third division Ústí nad Labem? His father was supposed to secure him a place in coach Branislav Sokoli’s team with half a million crowns. Last week, the news shocked not only fans in the Czech Republic. Thanks to the tweet of the famous and respected English football player Gary Lineker, it was mediated by a number of prestigious foreign servers. It has now come to light that the management of Ústí nad Labem was only about visibility, the whole story was made up. But there is also a godly dimension in the background.
The atmosphere at the Ústí football stadium during the duel between B and Kadan | Video: Diary/František Bílek
He hinted that something was wrong in a conversation with the coach after Friday’s duel in Česká Lípa. To a direct question from the club moderator, who was investigating Podhajský’s involvement in the team, he answered: “No comment yet”. The fat man’s potential teammate, Lukáš Zoubele, smiled slyly when asked the same question. . Nova TV then came out with the revelation of the whole case, the club management mystified the fans and the sports public.
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Podhajský was written about worldwide. Not only in England, but also in Italy, Serbia or Turkey. “It was on about ten websites in Turkey. They wrote to us from Turkish e-mails that they would like to play in our club, and they would offer us sums for it,” said Martin Prokeš, deputy chairman of the board of directors of the Ústí club, in a report on tn.cz.
It was the unprecedented interest that prompted Prokeš & spol. to come out with the truth. Viagem, which owns Ústí, achieved visibility much earlier than it had planned. But Prokeš claimed in Nova’s report that the plan had other goals as well. “With that story, we wanted to draw attention to a general problem that exists not only in football, but in sports in general, in terms of patronage and rich daddies. We have encountered it several times during our two months of working at the club, that for a place in the starting line-up we will get new jerseys, equipment, and this was our way of drawing attention to it.”
GLOSSARY: Marketing that has balls. Football Ústí nad Labem is already known to the whole world
The club wanted to play Podhajský’s story until the spring. It is said that there is a godly purpose behind the project. “We founded a foundation to help children who were not lucky. It’s called Dig Out and it’s supposed to fight protectionism. With sponsors’ money, he is supposed to look for athletes who want to play, but can’t because they come from poor families,” convinced Matěj Svojše, director of the club’s PR.
“We succeeded in what we wanted. We celebrate that Martin Podhajský, who was tasked with hyping up the foundation, did this half a year earlier,” concluded Přemysl Kubáň, president and owner of FK Viagem Ústí nad Labem.
Arma from Ústí attracted attention before the start of the season, when they let the fans vote on the shape of their jerseys. But both variants were quite retro and rather upset the club’s fans. Then it became clear that it was only a hoax, Ústí presented completely different jerseys. Even in this case, the intention was to draw attention to the club (and especially its owner).
