News

Interior Minister Ivan Langer has come out in criticism of those at the head of the Czech football association and called for a change in leadership. In Saturday’s edition of the newspaper Sport, Mr Langer attacked FA bosses for preparing insufficiently for a change in the way stadiums are policed. When the Czech Gambrinus Liga resumed after the winter break last week, football grounds’ security was supposed to be taken care of by the clubs themselves, and not the Czech police. But, after violence erupted at a match in Brno, the police were forced to intervene and five arrests were made. On Saturday, Ivan Langer said that if the Czech FA had prepared better for the change, police intervention would not have been necessary. The head of the football association Pavel Mokrý responded that it was not his organization which was to blame and called Mr Langer’s comments ‘inadmissible state intervention’ into the FA and its board.

Czech banks snubbed the prospect of international financial aid on Friday, saying they were well capitalized and did not need any financial assistance. The World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank announced a 24.5 billion-dollar two-year plan to provide capital to central and east European banks. But two of the three largest Czech banks, Komerční Banka and Česká spořitelna responded immediately that they did not need such financial assistance. The Czech government and National Bank have been keen to stress that the national economy does not need outside support.

The Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs Alexandr Vondra has come out in favour of the Czech Republic joining the eurozone as soon as possible. Mr Vondra said in an interview with the business daily Hospodářské noviny that getting on board what he described as ‘the steamship’ would be better than keeping the crown in the mid-term. The government is expected to set a date for adopting the euro in the autumn. The Czech Republic’s neighbour Slovakia, meanwhile, adopted the European single currency at the start of 2009.

The country’s biggest bank in terms of client numbers, Česká spořitelna, said on Friday that it had raised net profits by an annual 30.2 percent to 15.81 billion crowns (around 712 million USD) in 2008. The profit was generated by the sale of the bank’s insurance unit in particular, a spokesperson said. Česká spořitelna, which is owned by Austria’s Erste Bank, has over 5.3 million clients and almost 11,000 employees. Erste Bank, meanwhile, said on Friday its bottom-line profit fell by 26.8 percent in 2008.