Coach mildly punished after filming his players in the shower. The technician was banned in the Czech Republic, but can operate abroad
14 female players from FC Slovacko, a club in the Czech first division, were unknowingly filmed for four years by their coach as they changed and showered.
Club Slovacko, in a state of shock PHOTO Facebook
Coach Petr Vlachovsky, who was also found in possession of child pornography, was sentenced last May, without a public hearing, to a one-year suspended prison sentence and given a five-year national ban.
“An extremely mild punishment“, according to the players involved and FIFPRO, the international football union. Vlachovsky could return to coaching in the Czech Republic as early as 2030. Immediately, however, he can play in championships in the rest of the world. FIFPRO is requesting a global ban for the technician.
Vlachovsky, a former coach of the Czech Republic's under-19 women's national team, used a miniature camera hidden in a backpack for four years to film Slovacko players in the dressing room, undressing and showering. The youngest was 17 years old.
“Some of my teammates started to worry that someone was watching them, even through the window. They had trouble sleeping, some girls were vomitingKristyna Janku, a player from Slovacko, told Czech newspaper Seznam Zprav at the time of Vlachovsky's arrest.
It is a nightmare that marked the players strongly. “Everywhere I went an alarm went off in my head and I was always checking to see if there was a camera somewhere“, said Alena Peckova. “I even started having problems with my body. I felt disgust“, she added.
The players are angry and disappointed by the sentence handed down. “We all think it's a jokeJanku explained,but the investigator warned me in advance that we should not expect anything special“.
The girls were supported from the very beginning by CAFH, the Czech Footballers' Union and FIFPRO. The first two associations are urging the Czech Federation, under the conditions in which the criminal proceedings and the administrative proceedings of the Football Association are separate and can be carried out in parallel, to ban Vlachovsky and all sex offenders from ever returning to a football pitch.
CAFH and the athletes chose to go public with the case, although this increases the pressure on the victims. The President of CAFH, who is also a member of the FIFPRO Europe Board of Directors, Marketa Vochoska Haindlova, stated that the union is “in contact with female players to ensure their needs are adequately met.” The union offered them legal representation and the opportunity to access “mental health and counseling program for athletes, provided by experienced professionals“.
The policy is one of “zero tolerance”, and the objective is “to use this case to push for an amendment that would provide a lifetime ban for all sex offenders. This is the only way forward“, explained Haindlova. FIFPRO is also calling for stronger safety and protection measures for female athletes, as well as an easier exchange of information between countries, in the case of convicted coaches.
