Czech professional football trainer fined and suspended for an unprecedented eight months over antigypsyist remark, says he will appeal
A football trainer for the Dukla side in Prague, Petr Rada, has received a record eight-month suspension from the commission on discipline for a racist insult he used during the 17th round of the second league tournament when the team played against Zbrojovka Brno. The former coach of the Czech national team will not be allowed back on the bench for the rest of this season and the entire fall part of the upcoming year, and has also been fined CZK 80,000 [EUR 3,150].
Speaking to the Czech News Agency (ČTK), Rada said he will appeal the verdict and is ready to stop working as a trainer altogether. The League Football Association (LFA), which administers professional competition in the Czech Republic, issued a press release about the unprecedented punishment.
Rada is said to have made the remark during the duel in the opening spring round that ended up a 3:3 draw. “On the basis of a report from the LFA’s technical delegate and camera footage it was proved that he actually aimed an insult with a racist subtext toward the Zbrojovka Brno bench,” said the chair of the commission, Richard Baček.
The commission launched its proceedings with Rada two weeks ago. The minutes of the meeting state that the coach of the Praguers was investigated over whether he called Brno trainer Tomáš Polách a “desperate gypsy”.
“In the minutes all it says is ‘You desperate gypsy’, nothing else. I told the commission that I do not believe this is racism. I’m from the old school, it’s all the same to me if somebody’s this or that. I apologized to him after the match for overdoing it and he apologized to me too. We had some coffee together and closed the matter. I don’t know if this is a conspiracy or if somebody is behind this. Eight months for something like that? I don’t get it,” Rada told ČTK.
“We’re appealing, with Dukla, and we’ll see how it goes. We’ll get advice, but in the worst-case scenario I’ll quit, I don’t have a problem with that. If the appeal doesn’t work out, eight months is a terribly long time to not be allowed on the bench. I’d tell the owners to find a trainer who can attend the matches,” the 65-year-old coach added.
Immediately after the second league clash ended between the current leader of the table, Dukla, and last year’s participant in the highest competition, Zbrojovka Brno, Petr Boháček, an official with the Brno club, took to the X social media site to complain about Rada’s behavior. The chair of the commission, Richard Baček, also said in the press release that “The commission on discipline could not substantiate the claim publicly presented on the X social media site from the account of a member of the supervisory board of Zbrojovka Brno that several grossly racist insults were targeted at the Brno management team. That is one reason why the final version of this punishment isn’t even higher.”
Rada played as a defender for the Czech national side and has coached teams in Jablonec, Liberec, both Prague teams (Slavia and Sparta) and the team in Teplice, and during the course of his career as a trainer, the commission on discipline has punished him repeatedly. Before this, he was most recently suspended for three matches and fined CZK 30,000 [EUR 1,180] for threatening assistant referee Tomáš Mokrusch during a match in Chrudim.
