Chrobry Nowogrodziec—the third-place team in the 2009/2010 Lower Silesian IV League season and the winner of the 2009/2010 Polish Regional Cup—has ceased to exist. The club board decided to withdraw the team from the Lower Silesian competitions. The decision to withdraw the senior team from competition means that fans in Nowogrodziec will not watch their team not only in the IV League, but may not even see it compete at A-class level.
None of Chrobry’s fans expected the team to cease to exist. The surprising decision to withdraw the team from competition was made after a meeting between the club board and supporters and the authorities of the City and Municipality of Nowogrodziec. During the meeting, the parties failed to agree on the amount of support for the club from the budget of the City and Municipality of Nowogrodziec.
In a telephone conversation with us, Chrobry’s outgoing president, Waldemar Wiktor, stated that the reason for withdrawing the team from competition was the lack of support from the authorities of the City and Municipality of Nowogrodziec for the club’s continued operation. “It is a shame that the team could not be saved. The club functioned well and promoted Nowogrodziec through football, but the city and municipal authorities imagined the team’s functioning in the league somewhat differently,” Wiktor said. The president also did not agree to Chrobry playing in a lower division, arguing that since the club had a license and the opportunity to play in the IV League, it should play rather than “go backwards.”
The Mayor of Nowogrodziec, Robert Relich, also told Grzegorz Bereziuk of Słowo Sportowe that “the main reasons for the current situation are financial.” The mayor emphasized, among other things, that money for competing in the IV League was included in the municipal budget, in the so-called second tranche, but the board’s resignation meant that it could not be physically transferred. Relich also added that “one must know how to match sporting ambitions to available opportunities,” and that the team could have been rebuilt using players from Nowogrodziec itself and nearby clubs. In the mayor’s opinion, the club should also have looked for sponsors rather than relying solely on a budget subsidy.
In his conversation with a journalist from Słowo Sportowe, the mayor of Nowogrodziec also expressed regret over the senior team’s withdrawal from competition. “We are fully determined to appoint a new board. I do not know the regulations thoroughly, and I do not know whether, if we make it in time, we will still be able to enter a lower division. The situation is quite difficult,” Robert Relich said at the end of his conversation with Grzegorz Bereziuk.
Kto ponosi winę za wycofanie Chrobrego z IV ligi?
(GB/MZ/KG report)