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After two years, the police investigation into whether speed skating coach Petr Novák cheated with money intended for young competitors has ended.
According to the Seznam Správ findings, the detectives postponed the case at the beginning of February. With the conclusion that nothing criminal happened. “Criminal investigators did not find that a crime had been committed in the matter, and the case was postponed,” confirmed Prague police spokesman Jan Daněk.
The coach of three-time Olympic champion Martina Sáblíková said on Tuesday that he knows nothing about the result of the examination. “But if it is as you say, it would be good,” he responded.
Novák has been involved in economic crime since the beginning of 2022. At that time, in the role of head coach of the association, he found himself suspected of charging the Czech Speed Skating Association suspiciously high sums for training in Italy, where he took young promising competitors.
They were saving, transporting potatoes
Due to suspicions about the invoices, the management of the union even refused to pay Novák 1.8 million – they hesitated whether the food and accommodation were as expensive as the coach stated on the invoices.
“We had serious doubts as to whether the amounts were inflated. And Novák repeatedly refused to document what exactly he paid during the training and how much it really cost,” Václav Musil, now former vice-president of the union, described at the time.
Then the coach from Hodonín Libuša Steklá, who took part in some of the training sessions in 2019 and 2020, came directly with the criminal complaint. She requested accommodation documents and found out that they include, for example, full board meals. And at the same time, according to her testimony, the competitors cooked for themselves to reduce costs – they also brought potatoes with them from the Czech Republic.
According to trainer Steklé, the price for the accommodation was also not right: Through the Booking service and her inquiries to a specific hotel, she found out that it should have been possible to purchase a stay significantly cheaper. She calculated the damage for four training sessions at 700,000.
Last fall, the police officers took away the accountancy from the headquarters of the association.
Photo: List of News, List of News
One of the documents for accommodation in the Italian Alps, which was checked by the police.
Thousands of euros per hand
It is not possible to find out specifically what led the investigators to postpone the case.
Seznam The News requested a document on the postponement under the Information Act, but the police management refused to provide it.
According to spokesman Jan Daňko, the investigators examined accounting documents, checked bank operations and accounts (precisely because of the alleged overvaluation of invoices) and requested international cooperation – presumably with the Italian police.
The leadership of the union, after Seznam Zprávy described the tension due to the dispute over invoices, turned around – and began to unanimously stand behind Novák. And this even after the inspection from the National Sports Agency confirmed some irregularities that also appeared in the criminal report. Among other things, that Novák received thousands of euros on hand at the training camp.
“Mr. Novák received money in cash, unfortunately sometimes without the receipts being signed,” acknowledged Jan Létal, vice-chairman of the union, after the inspection.
Novák: I have the right to remain silent
The auditors also listed (and only on a small sample of accounts made available to them by the police) seven cases in which the union did not provide reliable accounting documents.
These were documents for accommodation and meals in Italy, Austria, American Salt Lake City and Croatia. The management of the union explained this by saying that foreign accommodation providers simply sometimes do not issue the kind of documents that are standard in the Czech Republic.
The National Sports Agency estimated the loss at 275,000, and the association had to return this money.
Novák refused to talk in detail about the whole problem with finances – and this continues to this day. “I have the right not to comment on it,” said the coach now.
However, he acknowledged in a written statement two years ago that all may not have been in order regarding the money for the training camp.
“Unknowingly, I may not have always followed all the administrative manuals, which I admitted several times within the union. However, I have always acted exclusively for the benefit of all competitors, regardless of age and performance, for the benefit of speed skating as a whole,” Novák wrote at the time.
