The Czech Football Association (FACR) said Tuesday it had picked Portuguese ex-referee Vitor Melo Pereira to head its Referees Committee, which has been hit by a match-fixing scandal. The FACR sacked the previous Committee led by Jozef Chovanec, a former Czechoslovakia and Czech Republic international player of PSV Eindhoven fame, in October. The move followed the arrest of deputy FACR head Roman Berbr and another 18 football officials in a police raid on an organised crime group over suspected match-fixing. "At the moment, this is the only way to fix the current situation at the Referees Committee and of referees in general," FACR head Martin Malik said in a statement. "I would like Mr. Melo Pereira to help the Referees Committee resume the status of an expert, transparent and fully independent body as soon as possible," he added. Melo Pereira, who is 63, was on the FIFA referee list for 11 seasons and officiated in the Champions League as well as at the 1998 and 2002 World Cups.
A 66-year-old former referee, Berbr was taken into custody together with another three Czech officials following the October raid. He stepped down from his position as a result. Berbr held his post since 2013 and according to local media has been pulling the strings in Czech football for years. His former boss, the ex-FACR head Miroslav Pelta, led the FA until he was detained in 2017 on charges of bribery and abuse of power. He is facing up to 12 years in prison if convicted. Local media have for some time implicated Berbr in relation to corruption cases and bullying at the FACR, but he has never been charged. Last week, the FACR cut Pavel Kralovec, who officiates in the Champions League, from the referee list for professional Czech leagues until the end of the year. Kralovec has been implicated in the match-fixing scandal over contacts with Berbr ahead of July's Czech cup final which saw him under fire for errors in favour of winners Sparta Prague. Berbr's wife Dagmar Damkova, the first female referee in the Czech Republic, stepped down from a post on the UEFA referees committee following her husband's arrest.
Source: AFP