Mihails Zemļinskis (born 21 December 1969) is a Latvian

politician A politician is a person who participates in Public policy, policy-making processes, usually holding an elective position in government. Politicians represent the people, make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles ...

and former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

. He played as a

centre-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

or sweeper, making over 100 appearances for the Latvia national team.

Football career

Zemļinskis spent most of his career at

Skonto FC Skonto FC was a Latvian professional Association football, football club, active from 1991 until 2016. The club played at the Skonto Stadium in Riga. Skonto won the Virsliga in the first 14 seasons of the league's resumption (15 in total), and o ...

except for short periods at BVSC Budapest and at Hapoel Kfar Saba. He was a skilled central defender and played for the Latvia national team after the country regained its independence in 1991. He played 105 matches and scored 12 goals for the national team, and took part in the 2004 European Championships in Portugal. Zemļinskis wore the number 4 jersey. He eventually became a football coach at

FC Daugava FC Daugava was a Latvian football club, based at the Daugava Stadium, in the city of Daugavpils. It was founded as FC Ditton in 2001. They lastly played in the Latvian Second League in 2015. They were one of two simultaneous clubs with the na ...

. He is also a former head coach of the Latvia U21 team.

Political career

Since 2009 he has been a

member Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

of the Latvian parliament

Saeima The Saeima () is the parliament of the Latvia, Republic of Latvia. It is a unicameral parliament consisting of 100 members who are elected by proportional representation, with seats allocated to political parties which gain at least 5% of the p ...

for the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Form ...

, commonly referred to as "Harmony". According to a request made to the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...

, Zemļinskis was listed as a member of the Coalition pour la Vie et la Famille (CPVF) at the European level, a hodgepodge European party of conservative, extreme right, populist, eurosceptic, regionalist and neonazi members of national and regional parliaments from seven EU countries. This was at odds with his national party's associate membership of the

party of European Socialists The Party of European Socialists (PES) is a Social democracy, social democratic European political party. The PES comprises national-level political parties from all the European Economic Area, European economic area states (EEA) plus the Unit ...

and its only member of European parliament being a member of the

. As of 19 April 2018, Zemļinskis was listed as a member of the

Alliance for Peace and Freedom The Alliance for Peace and Freedom (APF) is a far-right European political alliance and former European political party founded on 4 February 2015. The main member parties were involved in the defunct European National Front. The alliance wi ...

since 15 September 2015 in that European party's declaration of representatives registered with the Authority for European Political Parties and European Political Foundations.

Honours

Skonto Riga * Baltic Cup:

1993 The United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly of the United Nations designated 1993 as: * International Year for the World's Indigenous People The year 1993 in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands had only 364 days, since its ...

1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

* Latvian Champion (11): 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Individual *

Latvian Footballer of the Year Latvian Footballer of the Year is an association football award for Latvia. It is held by the Latvian Football Federation. Since 2005, there has also been an award for the top female player. Women's winners Men's winners See also *List ...

: 1998

References

External links

Latvian Football Federation
* 1969 births Living people Footballers from Riga Social Democratic Party "Harmony" politicians Deputies of the 9th Saeima Deputies of the 10th Saeima Deputies of the 11th Saeima Deputies of the 12th Saeima Latvian men's footballers Soviet men's footballers Men's association football defenders Latvia men's international footballers FIFA Men's Century Club UEFA Euro 2004 players Latvian Higher League players Skonto FC players Budapesti VSC footballers Hapoel Kfar Saba F.C. players Latvian expatriate men's footballers Latvian expatriate sportspeople in Hungary Expatriate men's footballers in Hungary Latvian expatriate sportspeople in Israel Expatriate men's footballers in Israel Politicians from Riga {{Latvia-footy-bio-stub