Poland's Olympic Committee hands leadership to new president after corruption arrest
On Monday, 14 September, the board of the Polish Olympic Committee (PKOl) transferred presidential duties to vice-president Marian Kmita after a court in Katowice upheld the three-month pre-trial detention of sitting president Radosław Piesiewicz.
President remains in custody
On Monday, 14 September, the Regional Court in Katowice rejected an appeal filed by Radosław Piesiewicz's defense against his arrest and upheld the earlier ruling of the district court. As a result, the president of the Polish Olympic Committee (PKOl) will remain in custody for another three months. He was detained on 27 August in Warsaw and faces two charges: offering paid protection and favoring certain creditors over others.
According to prosecutors, in 2025 Piesiewicz claimed to have influence at Poland's Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) through an acquaintance with a former prime minister, and in exchange received a Patek Philippe watch worth roughly 170,000 zlotys from Przemysław Kral, head of the cryptocurrency exchange Zondacrypto — a sum that Przegląd Sportowy and SportoweFakty put at about 40,000 euros. The second charge concerns April 2025, when concerns emerged about Zondacrypto's solvency: Piesiewicz allegedly urged a company executive to withdraw 195,000 zlotys and 100,000 euros from the exchange. Piesiewicz maintains he is innocent, saying he lost 200,000 euros and paid for the watch himself.
The scandal broke on 24 August, when journalists Szymon Jadczak (Wirtualna Polska) and Michał Fuja (TVN24) revealed the gifts Piesiewicz had received from Zondacrypto's chief.
New leader — serving without pay
On Monday the PKOl board decided, under Article 21 of its statute, to entrust presidential duties to vice-president Marian Kmita until the end of the current term in April 2027. According to SportoweFakty, 43 delegates voted for Kmita's candidacy, nine against, with one abstention; other sources do not report the vote count. The other potential candidate, vice-president Tomasz Chamera, withdrew despite support from Olympic champion Robert Korzeniowski.
Kmita is sports director at the Polsat television network and intends to keep that job while performing his PKOl role unpaid — unlike Piesiewicz, who, according to SportoweFakty, earned 62,000 zlotys a month before his arrest. Kmita was once a strong backer of Piesiewicz, but relations soured after the Zondacrypto sponsorship deal; Piesiewicz has called him a "Judas" in interviews. PKOl now faces liabilities of at least 1.5 million zlotys, potentially growing by a million zlotys each month, along with controversial leasing agreements and the loss of a sponsor — the Polsat Plus group terminated its contract with the committee ahead of the Milan-Cortina Olympics.
