MINSK, 2 December (BelTA) – Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has expressed a protest over the detention of Chairman of the Belarusian Football Federation Vladimir Bazanov by the police of the Czech Republic, BelTA reported citing Belarus 1 TV channel.
Charge d'Affaires of the Czech Republic in Belarus Peter Galaksa was summoned to the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Belarusian side expressed strong protest to the official Prague in connection with the detention of Vladimir Bazanov.
The chairman of the Belarusian Football Federation returned to Belarus. It turned out that the detention and visa cancellation of Vladimir Bazanov was made for spurious reasons and made a lot of noise on the eve of the qualifying match between the women's teams of the Czech Republic and Belarus.
The Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded explanations from the Czech Republic.
Vladimir Bazanov described the details of the incident. “It all started back in Minsk. The Czech embassy gave visas to our five athletes at the last minute. The girls arrived three hours before the game and played in Cyprus. We all went through, arrived in Vienna – there were no problems. Upon the arrival in the Czech Republic, there were no problems, either (27 November). The migration police came at 10.30 on 30 November. They checked all the documents and left. Some 40-50 minutes later they returned and asked to go with them to the police station. I and my wife went there and spent there eight hours and 30 minutes. They were looking, but could not find anything. They were walking around, started some kind of psychological pressure like “show me this or that paper”, “where are you registered”,” the chairman of the Belarusian Football Federation said.
He added that all the documents were submitted in a proper way. “According to all our legislative documents, we submitted all the lists to the Football Federation correctly. The Football Federation passed them on to the Sports Department. We crossed the border legally. The most important thing is that we had to play on that day. It turned out ugly: at first, they postponed the match, sending some official papers saying that they cannot play. Then they said that they were ready to play. But our girls weren't. We thought a little and decide to cancel. The game will be postponed till June,” Vladimir Bazanov explained.
