Football. Dawn match canceled, who will pay for it?

On Sunday at 2:30 p.m. in Bielsko-Biała a first league football match was to take place between the local Rekord and Szczecin's Świt, but although the team from Skolwin wanted to play, the match did not take place.

The match was to be broadcast online by TVP Sport, but at the time of the planned start of the match, the only thing on the screen was the inscription "broadcast starting soon" and highlights of previous matches were shown, including the first-league Kotwica Kołobrzeg. It took quite a long time, time flew by, nothing changed and there was no specific information about the match. Well, what's the surprise, it's a television station in liquidation...

So we started searching the internet and the first information appeared on Świt's Facebook page: "Due to rain, the match in Bielsko-Biała against Rekord will be delayed by at least 30 minutes. The decision on playing the match is to be made at 3 p.m."

After the aforementioned hour, we saw another piece of information on the Szczecin club's website: "Unfortunately, Sunday's match against Rekord will not take place, we will keep you informed about further decisions regarding this match."

We managed to establish that after the rain the pitch was quite wet, but according to the Szczecin residents, it was suitable for play. However, the hosts did not want to agree to this, and their firm attitude caused the referee not to decide to conduct the match. Let us add that according to the regulations, it is the host who is obliged to prepare a pitch suitable for play and meeting the requirements of a specific competition class, so in our opinion there are grounds for Świt to win the unplayed match by walkover. But all this must be decided by the Games Department of the Polish Football Association.

It was one of Świt's longer trips, because it was to the other end of Poland, and the distance to travel by coach is almost 700 km, and the trip is practically three days. It is also associated with considerable costs, transport, accommodation, food and providing conditions for warming up and training. In our opinion, the costs will exceed PLN 20,000.

If the Polish Football Association orders the match to be played on a different date, Świt will have to pay another PLN 20,000. Or maybe the host should bear these costs, because they did not secure a pitch suitable for play, or the wealthy Polish Football Association will have to shake its purse if they order the match to be played on a different date? If the match is repeated on a new date, Świt will lose another 3 days, and let's add that the games are already close to the end and there are no available dates. Probably, the Szczecin team will have to play every 3 days in the rhythm: Saturday - Wednesday - Sunday.

Świt is competing for promotion to the first league with the second team from Bielsko-Biała, i.e. Podbeskidzie, or maybe Rekord wants to help the local team and that's why they torpedoed the match from being played according to the schedule...? ©℗ (mij)