Grzegorz Kulikowski, an entrepreneur who provided transportation services for the Polish football association (PZPN) who made secret video recordings of Lato negotiating contracts for the building of the sporting body's new HQ building, said that his intended target was in fact Zdzislaw Krecina, PZPN's Secretary-General.
“I wanted to show the true face of Krecina, and Lato became involved in the whole affair quite by accident,” Kulikowski told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) on Saturday.
The release of the video recording by members of southern Poland's Podkarpackie football association threw Friday's general meeting of PZPN into disarray.
But Kulikowski has said that he had not intended the video to get into the media.
“I wanted to show the mechanisms that can lead to rot, but I have no evidence of corruption among the authorities of PZPN,” he said.
“The conclusion that Lato is involved in corruption is a manipulation,” he underlined.
Kulikowski said he wanted to reveal “the very important matter” of “the lack of transparent rules on tenders.”
On Friday, the day before Kulikowski's declaration, Krecina himself announced that PZPN would probably sue the author of the recording, branding Kulikowski as “a man who has blackmailed the association for years.”
Sports Minister Joanna Mucha said on Friday that she had passed on any evidence of corruption to the Attorney General.
It was announced Monday morning that the minister has written a letter to UEFA, the European football governing body, on the situation at PZPN.
The allegations come just seven months before Poland co-hosts the Euro 2012 football championships with Ukraine.
The latest scandal at PZPN comes after hundreds of players, coaches and association officials have been arrested in connection with a widespread match-fixing investigation launched by police in 2005.
Member of the European parliament (MEP) Jacek Kurski told Polish radio over the weekend that “he is surprised by nothing” when accusations of corruption at PZPN are concerned.
“It's interesting that, many years after 1989 [when communism collapsed in Poland], and despite the belief that there is corruption in Polish football, there has been no legislation introduced to fight it,” the MEP said.
Andrzej Halicki from the ruling Civic Platform said that the officials currently running Polish football are “from a different era”. “Only a new federation can replace what is rotten,” he said. (pg/nh)