One backed out, the other one requests a half a million crowns

Zdroj: Pravda, Michal Zeman

A case, in which three Slovak football players, members last year’s Olympic Games national team, requested from the S.I.T. Company, as well as Sport Progress (marketing partner of Slovak Football Association – SZF) 700,000 Slovak crowns as compensation for non-property damages, shifted dramatically. One of the players, Marián Čišovský, took back his complaint. Another, his team-mate from Inter Bratislava and a former captain of Radolsky “21” national team, Juraj Czinege, increased the amount from 300,000 Slovak crowns to a half a million Slovak crowns.

As everybody knows, Juraj Czinege, Marián Čišovský, and Eduard Hrnčár took legal action against S.I.T. and Sport Progress, because last year, during the August and September break, billboards featuring these players together with the trademark MARS (product of S.I.T.) appeared, which the football players saw as an absolutely undesirable connection of their names with cigarette products.

None of the players gave his consent for this advertisement, which at the time received lots of attention and negative response. This was the first time that Slovak football players have sought to protect their rights this way. “The players usually do not protest in cases such as this one, as the legal protection is minimal,” confirmed Jozef Tokoš, director of P.L.A.Y agency, who apart from other things represents Szilárd Németh, Slovakia´s best goalscorer. The impropriety of the advert was clear in that, after the protests, the brand name “MARS” on the billboards was subsequently covered over with a football.

Marián Čišovský, however, surprisingly changed his mind and in his case the legal action was stopped (he did not pay the court fee). The Inter Bratislava player confirmed this information. As to the question of why he changed his mind, he answered: “I will not comment on this, I only want to concentrate on the football.” According to our information, Čišovský’s decision came about due to pressure exerted on him from the SFA. At present, he is the only Slovakia player out of the threesome. His entrance into legal process with Sport Progress, and thus indirectly with SFA, which has a share of this company, could lead to him dropping out of Griga’s “21” team.

The General Secretary of the SFA, Mikuláš Tarči, had a meeting with Čišovský and the coach, Stanislav Griga, as well, and after this meeting the football player changed his mind. However, Griga did not confirm that he received a recommendation (order) not to nominate Čišovský for the team if he kept up the dispute. “We talked about this case involving the three players,” admitted the coach of the national team, “but nobody put any pressure on me.”

Griga is a promising coach and employee of SFA. We can hardly expect him to enter into open conflict with his employer. Last September the president František Laurinec fired former CEO of SFA, Ladislav Veselsky, with no mercy. The only reason was the slightly different opinion Veselsky had on solving problems within the SFA (mainly related to the later proved falsification of documents). He was accused of disloyalty, when, under media pressure, he hinted that some of his opinions were not in line with the official stand of the President of SFA. After this purge Laurinec called for loyalty among the league employees.

According to the information provided by Jozef Tokoš, representatives of S.I.T. Company in a discussion with him admitted signing a high-priced contract with Sport Progress. “Their task was to follow through on the personal rights, so conflicts such as this one could be avoided,” said Tokoš. That is why it is also in SFA’s interest to quietly solve this dispute and avoid the last resort – a lawsuit. The case of Juraj Czinege is different. He was dominant on the billboard, but at present, he is outside the reach of SFA. At first, he requested compensation of 300,000 Slovak crowns, but now he has increased the amount. “It is the truth, I am requesting 500,000. But so far I don’t want to talk about the circumstances of my decision,” reacted Czinege. We can assume that his approach cannot be separated from the case of Marián Čišovský. To the question of what he thinks about Čišovský’s decision he added: “These are the issues that I don’t want to talk about yet.”