Child sexual harassment is a huge problem in the Czech Republic! The case of the former national coach is just the tip of the iceberg

The education of children, whether in sport or education, is the most important thing for our good future. These innocent beings should never have to deal with such things as sexual harassment. Unfortunately, there are those who will damage children’s minds forever! What is even worse is that instead of investigating the case directly, the sports association allegedly preferred to sweep everything under the table for several years, Jan Černota reveals the facts.

How did you get to this whole problem that is now beginning to surface?

I have known Michal Hajek since the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century, when I found out that I was the parent of an athlete. And as a parent, I have been responsibly concerned about the quality of the training process. Back then, today’s multiple European champion Tomáš Polanský grew up in Ústí nad Labem, and it was Michal Hájek who found him and set up the whole concept.

This successful project could not be overlooked and due to its success, but also its systematic logic, empathy and individual responsiveness to young talent is still very remarkable today. Actually, at that time the club in Ústí nad Labem raised two successful Czech national team players, besides Tomáš also Jakub Seibert, with private money. And even then I was puzzled why the management of the Czech Table Tennis Association did not support or subsidize such a project.

Later, after Tomáš Polanský won the title of European Cadet Champion, I witnessed a disgusting meeting between the CAST management and the project manager in Ústí nad Labem, and that was the first time I asked myself a clear question, if not here, then where does the bastard give these subsidies, I later learned, that the chairman and the vice-chairman of the CAST have each in their club assigned a heavily subsidized Republic Youth Centre, but not too many talented players are flocking to it and here I first personally encountered blackmailing and bewitching around talented souls so that the two buffoons could boldly apply for subsidies.

Nothing good has ever come out of these two RCMs for the national team. In 2012, I was invited by my son’s coach to observe the preparatory camp before the 2012 World Championship, where the events surrounding the underage girls then culminated. It was in Skutch, I slept in the car and basically sat in the stands for a whole week, watching the preparation. I didn’t know anyone from the national team at that time and I was completely without prejudice. But I couldn’t help noticing the strange behaviour of one of the coaches, it was the former national coach M.L., he was wearing this perverted crocheted T-shirt with his nipples sticking out of it, but it was still something I didn’t bother with.

He didn’t know me, so when he gave his speech to the group, he had no idea I knew what he was talking about. He was badmouthing and quite aggressively evaluating a young player, a peer of his son, commenting at the time on how such an incompetent athlete could coach. Coincidentally, he was talking about my son’s coach, with whom he had won several medals at national tournaments, including the most valuable one, and had received a nomination for World Hopes, the whole thing can be summed up as while we were following Mr. Hajek’s concept of work, the former national coach M.L. was talking and hurting. And then more information came.

Michal Hájek noticed the strange behaviour of his colleague and asked the CAST management present to be proactive and firm against such behaviour. However, he was not listened to, which raises the question of whether more people were involved who have no interest in letting the matter blow over. Do you know of other people who have committed sexual harassment against children, or is former national coach M.L. the only one known so far?

There was a great hype around the nomination for the 2021 World Championship, for example, on the pinces.cz website we can still read how anonyms interfered and defamed talented children at that time, and we successfully resolved this disgusting case, when everything ended decisively since a certain court hearing, it was a strongly made recommendation to the operator of the Internet media and since then there has been peace.

But back to the events before and at the 2012 IEJ. On the given playing day at the 2012 IEJ, when dangerous harassment of female students had been occurring for a long time, and when the patience of the other national coach of the female juniors had reached its peak, it was Mr. Michal Hajek who asked the CAST management present to be proactive and decisive against such behaviour of his colleague.

The result was surprising, however, in that the then chairman of the youth commission replaced the coach who pointed out the paedophile and Mr Hájek was immediately suspended, while the paedophile could continue to raid the souls and bodies of underage girls.

Yes, I must say that in later times I witnessed the extreme unprofessionalism of other coaches, e.g. bullying by a coach in the form of early morning wake-ups and, as punishment, jumping frogs at five in the morning during the preparation for the 2016 World Championships, frequent morning lounging by another national coach after drunken nights while his charges competed indoors, throwing underage players out of a hotel abroad without anyone supervising the underage players, went and still gives me the shivers I had to witness in the treatment of Czech table tennis talent.

I have currently heard of another abuse of a young toy in the Prague national centre. She is being blackmailed that she has to endure the onslaught, she cries desperately after many training sessions, but she has no choice, this is the style of education of the Czech Table Tennis Association, the Russian communist way. I’ll just point out that we keep our distance from this coaching crap.

Today, if we read the discussion under the published article about the harassment of girls by the national coach, we find that this is the visible tip of the iceberg, behind which is the almost invisible phenomenon of the absence of any education, prevention, whistleblowing system, nothing.

The Ministry of Education and the NSA has done nothing for the safety of Czech children and young people in sport and, using the events in Schwechat at the 2012 World Championships as an example, crisis proceedings should be initiated, because Mr. Hájek received a punishment on the basis of his report, his activities were terminated, the management of the Czech Table Tennis Association did not stand up for him, and later neither did the Czech Olympic Committee, to which this successful and very professional coach turned for help.

Both organizations, as is evident from the written correspondence, very actively and intensively suppressed and covered up the harassment of underage girls and forced Mr. Hajek to resign from the youth national team and to leave the Czech Republic, where he then again worked very well and successfully in Saudi Arabia and his results stood up to the highest competitions in international comparison. Now Mr. Hajek has had a second stroke, because he is not able to tolerate the mafia in Czech sport in 2021 due to his elite nature. Unfortunately.

As you said yourself, Michal Hájek, who pointed out this problem, then had to fear for his health and fled the country. In your opinion, was he really in real danger?

Yes, I have almost answered that, but I will add a little more. As a parent, if you want your child to be raised by a personality, a coach with high moral credentials and extraordinary professional competence, then it is clear that when such a person starts to be devastated by the mafia, degenerate scumbags who are only interested in subsidizing their pockets, not allowing him to promote values, principles of fair play, education for a positive relationship to sport and respect for the opponent among children and young people, then it is murder, and I really fear for Michal’s health after I have seen everything in detail.

I’m very often in other sports, especially football, and I don’t see as many risks as in Czech table tennis, there is much more and more positive work with children and youth, but I’m under no absolute illusions, I see other risks from which I assume mental problems, depression and suicides of young athletes are recruited. Here again, I will only say that the MoJ, NSA and FA have done absolutely nothing in terms of improvement and prevention.

I am beginning to suspect even the Czech Universities, I cannot answer why the Czech sports environment is not improving, where are the new graduates, coaches and managers who are not burdened by the past? Where is the new energy, know-how? What is happening in Czech sport? We see it following the example of the NSA, after a year and a bit of its operation we see nothing but the alarming negative results from the National Audit Office audit and the departed Hnilicka, who complained about too much work and has already found a comfortable role in the NSA under the nomination of the new chairman Neusser, which then radiates to the whole Czech sport the devastation of the enthusiasm of others, the hardworking and honest ones.

Czech sport lacks spirit, concept and hard work, if you work hard and professionally in Czech sport, you are a black sheep, you are different, you are dangerous for the lazy rabble, you are a target and because not everyone is assertive, it is often a matter of life, especially for young athletes.

Do you think this problem is also in other sports or is this case an exception?

It’s a national problem, in school the winner is the one who passes the test, in society the one who steals the most, and in sports the one who has an agent to get him a spot. And it goes on and on. Just don’t stick your head out, don’t stand out and don’t criticize anyone.

Do you believe in rehabilitation and, above all, punishment for the former national coach, or are you afraid that in our country it is enough to have good connections, just like in football (see the last Berbr case), where huge sums of money flowed into various people’s pockets, from which children could benefit and have a better future?

I witnessed a court hearing for a good sporting cause and I saw that the judge took the subject very fairly, I believe that the case of the former national coach M.L. will also be judged fairly and well. And I hope that it will also fulfil a preventive role, i.e. that those who will cover up and conceal such dangerous behaviour of an individual will know that they will be punished.

When someone is sick and hits children, that’s what the neighborhood is for too, a second, third coach to intervene and the Czech Table Tennis Association and the Czech Olympic Committee to act and prevent a tragedy, those abused girls and their families will go on with it their whole lives. I believe in strict punishment of the culprits and in preventing them from continuing in the sport.

In this regard, I am completely puzzled by the attitude of Czech table tennis legends who are silent or rather on the other side. Who else should raise their hand and say ENOUGH. I must admit that I am not proud of the Czech legends and their indifference and I am even ashamed. Table tennis is a worldwide family, everything is known, none of the Legends can say they didn’t know, yes, I am ashamed.

But I will also point out that they were also treated as things rather than people in Czech table tennis, that would be another story. I’d rather drop this topic, I expect legends to be elite even as people. The problem in the Czech Republic is that neither the MIT nor the NSA have set up any system, no concept, no rules, nothing.

Subsidies are thrown around, nothing is controlled and everything that can be done is done “differently”. The league players in the clubs run on lawns that are built and maintained with the money of the youth, who often never set foot on such a lawn in their lives. And that’s how the circle of thieves gets started.

The club managements are often aware that they could not find such brilliantly paid work anywhere else, so they keep themselves in the middle of the table and vegetate there with taxpayers’ money, then 22 approved and often not the best footballers run around on the pitch for a pittance and the whole thing is so rotten, unsporting, over and over and about nothing, honour the exceptions.

And that’s the wheeling and dealing in this environment. I always wonder what the drivers of Mercedes and other mega expensive cars do for a living when I see them arriving in the VIP area for a match. I am often in Eastern and Western Europe, but I only see this corruption here. So what to do about it? The NSA needs to set the rules of the game and only then let subsidies in, which they need to strictly control and respond to any problems.

We have seen that the National Audit Office, for example, can already operate without corruption, which gives me hope that perhaps one day Czech sport will see its honest form. And corruption in table tennis? Huge. When you consider that a player, in order to get a place on the international ranking, has to attend 8 international tournaments a year and when you have to pay around 20 thousand crowns for each one, you can certainly calculate what tricks the officials are inventing to get subsidies for themselves.

Berbr may be the best thing we’ve ever seen in Czech pinko in this respect. We’ve always been out of this dirty mess, you just have to pay for everything. But is this even a sport, is this the way we want to go as a nation? I certainly don’t, which is why I, along with a few successful people, athletes and managers, founded the 121 ELITE Sports platform.

On the one hand we will show the way and on the other hand we will go after the NSA, we will point them – the buffoons, we will point out their deals, we will step on their heels, we will force them to do quality work, we will enforce their replacement, if they are not up to the demands of the management of Czech sport and international competition, it is already time to eliminate these people from the process, to thank the unfit and incompetent ones, to throw the thieving scum out of sport. I work in industry for a living, so I’m independent and I can safely say if our national car manufacturer ŠKODA AUTO operated the way Czech sport does, there would barely be a trolley out of the halls and I don’t think even that would be without breakdowns.

You’ve bitten the bullet a bit, but how do you think the Czech Republic compares to other countries in terms of bribery and sexual issues? In one global analysis on corruption in sport that was recently published, the Czech Republic was tagged with the comment, ” There is a really, really, really, really big problem in the Czech Republic!” According to that analysis, even some eastern countries are not that badly affected by corruption.

I work with African sport, with the elite of football, e.g. from Mali. They have already overtaken us, and I don’t just mean in football, but also in education, in the way they approach life. It is difficult to be a professional in the Czech Republic, society does not look for that, nor does it look for honesty, sincerity, fairness. But this will change, it is a reflection of the socialist education in the past, the fear of the STB, of liquidation of life for courage, for opinion.

These things will gradually go away with my generation and young faces will come, at least I believe they will. But given the devastation of education, it won’t be quick or easy. To comment on what all is devastated in the Czech Republic, it is these two areas and only these two areas, both of which are supposed to educate the new Czech society.

Our schools are declining and we are talking about sport here. And a weak and uneducated athlete is literally a magnet for corruption, I don’t want to be critical at all costs, but I know that sex and prostitution played a role in the industry in the 1990s, less so today, companies have to be competitive to survive on the market, but in subsidized sports I can imagine this filth as effective, after all, we actually see what some coaches demand and they are granted in their careers.

There must be two of us for these things, but I would not like to imply anything in relation to the case of the former national coach M.L. There were children involved, defenceless ones, and Mr. Hajek should have dealt with him on the spot, but he did not know that the management of the Czech Table Tennis Association would not support him, and on the contrary, that thanks to attempts to cover it up, it would be dealt with only in 9 years.

In your opinion, is it also the current government’s fault, or was it unable to perceive these problems because of all the other circumstances?

It is 100% the fault of the government and its institutions, the MoE, the NSA and we can blame ourselves for who we elect, who we have there. Unfortunately, the schools are so weak that we have come full circle in our judgement of who to vote for, and some thieving dickhead is going to get us drunk on a roll and put us and our children billions in debt.