20 east

I’ve mentioned, or alluded to, a growing debt mountain in Poland many times before. Now I’m starting to see signs of people having difficulty repaying debt. I’m not sure I really understand the numbers being thrown around in this article, hopefully the original from Rzeczpospolita is clearer, but the general thrust is what I expected to see and suspect we will be seeing a lot more of in the coming months / years.

Will banks be exercising bad habits here in Poland because they can’t be seen to be doing it in other countries worse hit by the ‘credit crunch’ and they still want to try and get richer, quicker? Or will they have learnt their lessons and be displaying appropriate amounts of caution and due diligence here?

I wonder, is it actually possible for a bank to surprise me in a good way?

Further to my earlier post about the state of football in Poland. The Polish equivalent of the Football Association have decided to grant an amnesty to all corrupt football clubs. There will be no relegations or other punishments.

I expect they ran the punishment scenario through the processor and ended up with a very bad result – no clubs left in the “Premier League”, no sponsors, no money, no TV, a nation left with the equivalent of Sunday League football sponsored by ‘Joe’s Shoe Repairs’.

What a diabolical mess! I’m sorry for any clubs that have got where they are without corruption. I’m sorry for all Polish football supporters and I’m wondering who, if anyone, has the ability to remove and replace en-masse the people responsible for the management of Polish football.

What happens after this so-called amnesty ends? Are the clubs supposed to have regulated themselves and if they haven’t bothered, then what? Why should they bother anyway, it seems they can carry on being as corrupt as they like and nothing much is going to happen to them. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if other clubs join in the corruption.

I hope someone, somewhere behind the scenes is doing ‘the right thing’, but I fear the worst.