Warsaw: Prime Minister reveals findings after postponed England match
source: StadiumDB.com; author: michał
Scandal behind the postponed Poland-England game ends with an anticlimax. Internal audit in Ministry of Sports and National Sports Centre reveals that “everyone lacked determination”, but no-one is really guilty of 58,000 people being left out in the rain.
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During today's press conference Prime Minister Donald Tusk briefly presented the findings of internal audit ran for several days in Ministry of Sports and National Sports Centre (NCS - operates the National Stadium on behalf of the ministry).
The operations of last Tuesday were rechecked to find those guilty of negligence that led to Poland-England game being postponed. Despite the venue having a retractable roof, pitch was soaked for hours and unusable for players during the 2014 World Cup qualifier. This was due to the roof not having been closed and at the same time the pitch being a temporary installation, without proper drainage. If drainage was in place, the field would have been usable despite rain and open roof.
So who is to blame? Sports Minister Joanna Mucha submitted her resignation today, but Prime Minister Donald Tusk refused to accept it, stating that it wasn't Mucha's personal responsibility to cater for the game.
At the same time Tusk indicated that NCS president Robert Wojtaś lacked the determination one would expect from a person running the country's most prestigious and most expensive stadium.
Yet Wojtaś will not be subject to any penalty for the suggested negligence, Tusk left any decisions on that to Joanna Mucha. The Sports Minister is supposed to increase her influence and control over NCS's operations by the end of the year.
The audit didn't concern the game's organisers – Polish FA (PZPN) and FIFA – as both organisations have autonomy and may not be subject to governmental influence.
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