Polish FA president Grzegorz Lato to stand for re-election

Grzegorz Lato: photo - PAP/Rafal Guz (arch)

Grzegorz Lato's decision, announced Thursday morning, comes after he said last autumn that he would resign his post if Poland failed to qualify for the knock out stages of Euro 2012 - which the side failed to do when they came bottom of Group A in the tournament co-hosted by Poland and Ukraine which ended on 1 July.

“I never said that I would resign,” Lato, who has been president of PZPN since 2008, protested in his statement this morning.

“I repeatedly stressed that the final decision would be made ​​after the European Championship finals,” he writes on the PZPN's web site.

“The championships are now finished and we were very highly evaluated by UEFA president Michel Platini. We can all be proud of the organization of the event in Poland.”

The news that Lato – who was accused of being involved in a property deal corruption case late last year – is to stand again for the post will not please Minister of Sport Joanna Mucha, who said last week that it was clear that “PZPN is being badly managed” and called for the current president to “honour his word” and quit.

A recent poll by the CBOS opinion pollsters found that 60 percent of Poles negatively assessed the activities of PZPN and the most trusted candidate to take over from Lato as president was former Polish international, and possibly the greatest player ever to wear the white and red shirt of the national team, Zbigniew Boniek.

Boniek has yet to say if he will stand for the post, or not, in the elections voted by PZPN delegates on 26 October. (pg)