Czechia: The secret policeman, the rap song and the bus that got stuck in Mexico
(AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
The bus got stuck at their training ground in Zapopan last week. The driver took a wrong turn somewhere in the Guadalajara suburbs, then another, and eventually the players grabbed their bags and walked to where they needed to be. A World Cup squad, hiking. This is Czechia. On the morning of March 24, 2026, two days before Czechia played the Republic of Ireland in a World Cup playoff in Prague, police arrived at the headquarters of the Czech Football Association at six in the morning. Investigators from the National Centre Against Organised Crime, backed by regional units, supported by Europol and Interpol and UEFA’s own anti-match-fixing division.The operation ran from the first division down to the fourth, into youth competitions, to a town mayor, to Martin Latka, co-owner of MFK Karvina and a former Birmingham City defender, to men who travelled to Vienna to collect cash from Asian betting accounts. Forty-seven disciplinary proceedings were initiated that day. The federation president called it probably the largest operation in Czech football history. Three weeks later, Czechia beat Denmark on penalties in Prague to reach the World Cup for the first time in twenty years.
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