Jagiellonia’s great troubles. The fight for life continues. “More corpses fell out of the closet”

Wojciech Pertkiewicz became the president of Jagiellonia Białystok at the beginning of 2022, and his main task in the new position was to improve the financial situation of the club. Jagiellonia closed 2021 with PLN 11 million in the red, and last year Jagiellonia’s finances did not significantly improve. To make matters worse, the team led by Maciej Stolarczyk has 18 points after 17 league games and the advantage over the relegation zone is only two points.

Jagiellonia is still not financially stable. “More corpses have fallen out of the closet”

Wojciech Pertkiewicz spoke with before the start of the second part of the season. The president of Jagiellonia was tempted to summarize the year of his work in the new position. – It was a difficult year. The situation of the club is more difficult than I assumed after the initial audit. Unfortunately, in the meantime, more corpses fell out of the closet. We strive to be a reliable partner for contractors and players. We have been moving towards rationalizing contracts for a year. We had 90 contracts in stock and we started the season with 70 players. More changes are ahead of us, he said.

A big help for Jagiellonia was parting with Bogdan Tiru and a compromise on the termination of Ivan Runje’s contract. – What was the financial problem? The fact that in good faith, aiming at maintaining great league results, the club made significant, long-term commitments. If it wasn’t for the support of shareholders and other partners and sponsors, it would be very bad. Now we are in a difficult situation, but one that gives hope. In 2022, shareholders supported the club with over PLN 16 million – added Pertkiewicz.

What are my plans for 2023? I would like to further optimize the company’s costs. We spend too much in several areas. Fortunately, the serious crisis is behind us, which does not mean that there are no problems – added the president of Jagiellonia. And what made the club decide on Dusan Stojinović and not Andrzej Niewulis? We offered a six-month contract with an option to extend it for a year. Andrzej chose the more stable offer of Miedź Legnica. We are still working on transferring the player to the center of the field – he summed up.

Jagiellonia Białystok will start the second part of the Ekstraklasa season on Sunday, January 29. Then the band led by Maciej Stolarczyk will play at 12:30 with Piast Gliwice.