Calls grow for the removal of the head of the Polish Olympic Committee after detention in the Zondacrypto affair
President of the Polish Olympic Committee (PKOl) Radosław Piesiewicz has come under the greatest pressure yet to leave office after he was detained on August 27, 2026, as part of a wide-ranging investigation into the crypto-asset platform Zondacrypto, the former main sponsor of the Polish Olympic movement. The Polish agency PAP reported that Piesiewicz was brought in the afternoon to the headquarters of the Silesian Branch of the National Prosecutor's Office in Katowice, after officers from the Central Bureau for Combating Cybercrime detained him in Warsaw. Minister of Justice and Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek had earlier confirmed that the actions were being carried out as part of the Zondacrypto investigation and announced additional information after the completion of the procedural steps. By the time this text was completed, the prosecutor's office had not publicly disclosed which specific criminal offenses he might be accused of or any decision on possible measures against him. Detention alone does not mean that criminal responsibility has been established, and only a court can decide on any eventual guilt.
The new development comes only a few days after a joint journalistic investigation by Wirtualna Polska and TVN24, which reopened the question of the relationship between Piesiewicz and Przemysław Kral, the head of Zondacrypto. According to documents and messages analyzed by the two newsrooms, Kral bought a Patek Philippe Calatrava watch worth around 40,000 euros in November 2025, and the media claim that the watch later ended up with the president of PKOl. The same investigation also cites other benefits, including travel, hotel accommodation and tickets to sporting events for Piesiewicz and people close to him. Piesiewicz rejects the claim that the watch was a gift or a quid pro quo and says that he paid for it with his own money, in cash and in Swiss francs, while Kral, according to his version, merely helped with the purchase.
The 40,000-euro watch became the central symbol of the affair
Wirtualna Polska and TVN24 state that the invoice for the Patek Philippe is made out to Kral and his private address and that the watch was paid for in full before his meeting with Piesiewicz in Monaco. Journalists also analyzed the certificate that Piesiewicz later showed during a television appearance, as well as his statements about the way in which he allegedly repaid Kral. Piesiewicz insists that it was a private purchase, not a gift, and claims that he can document the withdrawal of cash from his account. The media, however, state that the documentation in their possession leaves a number of questions about the timing of the purchase, the currency, the method of payment and the circumstances in which the watch passed from Kral's hands to Piesiewicz. According to a statement by Prosecutor General Żurek, these are precisely the circumstances now also being examined by the prosecutor's office.
The most sensitive part of the media reports concerns the claim that, in return, Piesiewicz was supposed to use his contacts to help Zondacrypto with problems involving Poland's Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, UOKiK, and to try to reach former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. Wirtualna Polska states that both Morawiecki and UOKiK head Tomasz Chróstny denied that such an intervention with them had been successfully carried out. So far, there has been no final court ruling establishing that Piesiewicz received an unlawful benefit or committed a criminal offense connected with the alleged intermediation. On August 25, the prosecutor's office had already announced that it was examining, among other things, information about a possible financial benefit connected with the president of PKOl. Two days later, he was detained, turning the case from a political and governance crisis into a direct criminal-procedural issue as well.
The Zondacrypto investigation is much broader than its relationship with sport
The background to the case goes far beyond the sponsorship agreement with the Olympic committee. The Regional Prosecutor's Office in Katowice opened an investigation on April 17, 2026, on suspicion of fraud to the detriment of Zondacrypto users and possible money laundering. According to official data from the prosecutor's office in June, more than 3,600 reports from injured parties had been recorded, nearly one thousand victims had been questioned, a large quantity of electronic equipment had been seized and more than 250 terabytes of data from the platform's servers had been secured. Polish investigators also established a joint investigation team with Estonia, while activities were coordinated with authorities in Monaco, and requests for legal assistance were also sent to other European countries.
In July, the prosecutor's office also announced that an account at a French bank branch had been blocked after four million euros from a transaction connected with a company registered in Monaco had been transferred to it. According to the official statement, investigators suspect that the transaction may have been one of the stages of laundering money originating from a criminal offense committed to the detriment of Zondacrypto clients. The proceedings were subsequently merged with an investigation concerning the operations of the platform's predecessor, BitBay, and the disappearance of its founder Sylwester Suszek. In August, the prosecutor's office spoke of an "important breakthrough" in the case, new evidence and new persons of interest. In that broader context, Piesiewicz's relationship with Kral represents only one of a number of avenues being examined by investigators.
For PKOl, the case is particularly sensitive because Zondacrypto had been the committee's general sponsor since October 2025 and was strongly present in its public identity. The partnership also included the financing of awards for athletes, some of which were supposed to be paid in tokens linked to the platform. After Zondacrypto experienced problems with withdrawals and ceased normal operations, some athletes publicly said that they could not obtain the promised awards. Eurosport reported that alternative funds were later found for some of the obligations to athletes, but the entire episode raised questions about risk assessment when selecting sponsors and the responsibility of the committee's leadership. Piesiewicz had previously defended the partnership, arguing that financing Olympic activities would not be easy without sponsorship support and that he himself also believed he had been harmed by Zondacrypto's problems.
The demand for removal existed even before the latest detention
Pressure on Piesiewicz did not begin with the affair surrounding the luxury watch. As early as the spring of 2026, a large number of Polish sports federations and PKOl members began publicly calling for his departure, primarily because of the management of the relationship with Zondacrypto and the way the committee's leadership responded to questions about the sponsorship agreement. Following a meeting convened in April by Sports Minister Jakub Rutnicki, 52 sports federations supported a statement calling for Piesiewicz's resignation. In May, a group of PKOl members initiated the statutory procedure for convening an extraordinary general assembly with one main item on the agenda - the dismissal of the president.
The number of signatures in public sources differed depending on the point at which the request was recorded. PKOl Vice-President Adam Korol said in August that 80 of the total 106 organizations had supported convening the assembly and Piesiewicz's departure, while PAP reported 82 signatures after the request was officially submitted at the end of May. In both cases, this represents a clear majority of the membership and a number above the threshold that the initiators considered necessary to start the procedure. Korol said on August 24 that Piesiewicz had not set a date for the extraordinary assembly and that the president's opponents were now preparing court proceedings through which they would try to enable it to be convened. According to the PKOl statute and the interpretation presented publicly by the initiators, an extraordinary assembly should be convened within the prescribed period following a valid request by members.
Piesiewicz refuses to step down. In May, he said that he was not considering resignation and that he intended to run again for president of PKOl in the elections in April 2027. He also claimed that some presidents of sports federations had been subjected to political pressure or persuasion to support his removal, but he did not publicly present evidence that would independently confirm those claims. His opponents, including prominent former Olympians and heads of individual federations, argue that the crisis of confidence has become an institutional problem that can no longer be reduced merely to a personal conflict within the committee. After the detention on August 27, calls for resignation gained additional weight, although detention alone does not legally mean that Piesiewicz is guilty of any criminal offense.
Divided PKOl leadership and growing reputational risk
Reactions within the Olympic movement show that the leadership is not completely united. Vice-President Adam Korol is one of the most prominent advocates of convening the assembly, while four-time Olympic champion Robert Korzeniowski sharply criticized Piesiewicz in an interview with TVN24 and said that the president's behavior undermines the dignity of Olympians. On the other hand, PKOl Vice-President Andrzej Supron defended Piesiewicz after the detention and suggested that compromising material was being sought against him. Such a division shows that at least two processes are unfolding in parallel: the criminal investigation conducted by state authorities and the internal struggle for control of an autonomous sports organization.
According to its own statute, the Polish Olympic Committee operates as an autonomous national sports association that organizes the participation of the Polish national team in the Olympic Games, promotes Olympic values and manages rights connected with Olympic symbols in Poland. Precisely because of that role, any prolonged leadership crisis has consequences that go beyond the president's personal position. The committee depends on the trust of sports federations, athletes, sponsors and international Olympic institutions, while the transparency of sponsorship relationships directly affects its credibility. Even without a final court ruling, the dispute over the way the partnership with the high-risk crypto industry was contracted and supervised has already become a question of governance standards.
For sports organizations more broadly, the case also raises the issue of due diligence on commercial partners. In recent years, the crypto industry has become an important source of sponsorship money in international sport, but at the same time it carries increased regulatory, market and reputational risks. When a sponsor cannot meet its obligations to athletes or becomes the subject of a criminal investigation, the consequences are directly transferred to the organization that has granted it the use of its name, symbols and access to athletes. In the case of PKOl, that risk was further intensified by the fact that Zondacrypto was presented as a key partner, and the company's name was also strongly associated with the Olympic Center in Warsaw. For that reason, the debate about Piesiewicz is no longer only about one watch, but also about the way the entire partnership was assessed and supervised.
What follows after the detention
The most important short-term answer is expected from Katowice, where investigators continued procedural activities with Piesiewicz on August 27. Prosecutor General Żurek stated that the prosecutor's office would release additional information after their completion and that it could not be assumed in advance whether pre-trial detention or some other measure would be requested. PAP reported at 4:17 p.m. that Piesiewicz had been brought to the National Prosecutor's Office in Katowice. This confirmed that the case was in an active phase, but at that moment there was still no official announcement of specific criminal-law allegations against him.
Regardless of the outcome of the procedural activities on August 27, the internal dispute within PKOl continues. Korol and the group of member organizations seeking an extraordinary assembly announced a court route to resolve the question of convening it, while Piesiewicz formally remains president of the committee until he resigns, is dismissed through the prescribed procedure or another reason for termination of office provided for by the statute occurs. The latest detention therefore does not automatically resolve the governance crisis, but makes it even more complex. In the coming days, the key factors will be the actions of the prosecutor's office, decisions by PKOl bodies and any court proceedings regarding the extraordinary assembly.
For Piesiewicz, the political and reputational room for maneuver has meanwhile narrowed considerably. On the one hand, a large number of PKOl members have been demanding his departure for months; on the other, state investigators are now officially examining the circumstances of his relationship with the committee's former sponsor. His defense remains that he did not receive the watch as a gift, that he paid for it himself and that a campaign is being conducted against him. Until the prosecutor's office publishes the results of the procedural activities and any specific allegations, those claims and the media findings remain subject to verification. Institutionally, however, the issue is already clear: the Polish Olympic Committee is entering a new phase of crisis in which it will have to simultaneously preserve the continuity of its sporting obligations and respond to serious questions about trust, transparency and the accountability of its own leadership.
Sources:
- Wirtualna Polska / TVN24 - joint investigation into the relationship between Radosław Piesiewicz and Przemysław Kral, the Patek Philippe watch and other alleged benefits (link)
- Wirtualna Polska - verification of Piesiewicz's version regarding the purchase of the watch and payment in Swiss francs (link)
- Wirtualna Polska - report on Piesiewicz's detention on August 27, 2026, and its connection with the Zondacrypto investigation (link)
- Polska Agencja Prasowa - information on Piesiewicz being brought to the National Prosecutor's Office in Katowice on August 27, 2026 (link)
- Polska Agencja Prasowa - data on the request for an extraordinary PKOl assembly and 82 signatures out of 106 member organizations (link)
- Eurosport / TVN24 - statements by PKOl Vice-President Adam Korol on the failure to convene the extraordinary assembly and the planned court proceedings (link)
- Regional Prosecutor's Office in Katowice - official data on the Zondacrypto investigation, the number of reports, international cooperation and secured evidence (link)
- Regional Prosecutor's Office in Katowice - July update on the investigation, the blocking of four million euros and the continuation of proceedings (link)
- TVN24 - context of the launch of the Zondacrypto investigation in April 2026 and official statements by the prosecutor's office regarding the case (link)
- Eurosport - reports on problems with athletes' awards following Zondacrypto's difficulties (link)
- Polish Olympic Committee - statute and description of PKOl's institutional role (link)