The Polish Football Association ( pl, Polski Związek Piłki Nożnej; PZPN) is the governing body of

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

. It organizes the Polish football leagues (without the

Ekstraklasa Poland Ekstraklasa (), meaning "Extra Class" in Polish, named PKO Ekstraklasa since the 2019–20 season due to its sponsorship by PKO Bank Polski, is the top Polish professional league for men's association football teams. Contested by 18 cl ...

), the

Polish Cup The Polish Cup in football ( pl, Puchar Polski w piłce nożnej ) is an elimination tournament for Polish football clubs, held continuously from 1950, and is the second most important national title in Polish football after the Ekstraklasa title. ...

and the

Polish national football team The Poland national football team ( pl, Reprezentacja Polski w piłce nożnej) has represented Poland in men's international tournaments football competitions since their first match in 1921. The team is controlled by the Polish Football Assoc ...

. It is based in the Polish capital of

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

History

The fully independent federation was established 20 December 1919 engulfing the autonomous Polish Football Union (PFU) that was part of the disintegrated Austrian Football Union. The PFU was established on 25 June 1911 in Lwów,

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

. Between 1911 and 1919 the national team of Poland played three games at the

Czarni Lwów Czarni Lwów was one of the first Polish professional sports clubs with the well developed football section as well as ice hockey among the several other sports. The football club was started in the late 19th century in Lwów as a school footbal ...

's stadium. The team was composed mainly of players from the city of Lwów. When the Wehrmacht invaded Poland in September 1939, all Polish institutions and associations were dissolved, including the PZPN. The German occupying forces forbade Poles to organise football matches. In September 2008, the leadership of the PZPN was suspended by the Polish Olympic Committee for " iolatingits statutes in a continuous and flagrant fashion." A year earlier, the Polish sports ministry also made an attempt to address corruption within the PZPN, but was threatened with suspension by

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

, which forbids any form of government intervention. On 30 October 2008,

Grzegorz Lato Grzegorz Bolesław Lato (Polish pronunciation: ; born 8 April 1950) is a Polish former professional football player and manager who played as a winger. He was a member of Poland's golden generation of football players who rose to fame in the ...

became the president of the PZPN. On 26 October 2012,

Zbigniew Boniek Zbigniew Boniek (; born 3 March 1956) is a Polish former footballer and manager as well as current UEFA vice-president. A former midfielder, who was also capable of playing mostly as a right winger and second striker, he is considered one of t ...

was elected president after winning 61 votes from 118 delegates. The football association turned 100 years with the

2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup The 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup was the 22nd edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup, the biennial international men's youth football championship contested by the under-20 national teams of the member associations of FIFA, since its inception in 1977 ...

during its centennial year. In 2019,

Józef Klotz Józef Klotz (2 January 1900 – 1941) was a Polish footballer who played centre-half. He scored the first-ever goal for the Poland national football team. He was killed by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1941. Biography Klotz was born in Kra ...

, who had played for the Poland national football team and was killed in the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

during

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

, was honored by the Association."Poland honors national soccer player murdered in Holocaust"
''Israel HaYom'', 11 June 2019. On 28 August 2021,

Cezary Kulesza Cezary Kulesza (born 22 June 1962) is a Polish former footballer and current president of the Polish Football Association (PZPN). He played for Jagiellonia Białystok in the Ekstraklasa Poland Ekstraklasa (), meaning "Extra Class" in Polish, n ...

was elected president.

Presidents

References

External links

Official website

{{Authority control

Football in Poland Futsal in Poland

Football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

1919 establishments in Poland Sports organizations established in 1919