In a long interview given to "Pealtnägija," Pohlak, who was re-elected for a sixth consecutive term as EJL chief in June this year, not long after he was elected a UEFA executive board member, adds that he is an "extreme" pacifist, condemning all wars.

The Estonian men's team recently lost its Group I World Cup qualifier against Italy 5:0 away, and didn't manage a score against Andorra during Tuesday's friendly.
However, while former Liverpool F.C. defender Ragnar Klavan, who Pohlak beat in June's vote, had pledged to bring the men's national team – currently ranked 126th in the world (out of 210) by FIFA – into the top 50, Pohlak said rankings are not an important yardstick.

Of more importance is the UEFA Nations League standing, he says, where Estonia was recently promoted to the C-League. "We are still the poorest football country in Europe and in addition we have a broken culture. The way we are building this up, we still want to reach the European average. During these four years, we would like to consolidate ourselves at the C-level of the Nations League. The FIFA ranking is not the measure today, the Nations League ranking is the measure," Pohlak said.

Klavan and Pohlak's EJL election campaigns also contrasted starkly: The former was highly visible and gave many interviews, while the latter stayed largely out of sight.

Pohlak also found his opponents' campaign, which criticized the unilateral nature of his tenure as EJL chief, "dirty," adding this was another factor in the six-month silence ahead of the elections.

According to Pohlak, Klavan's campaign lacked substance, while his team, which included non-football people such as PR specialist Taavi Linnamäe, former government minister Tiit Riisalo, and, as a board candidate, former defense forces chief Gen. Martin Herem, was not a serious lineup. Some allegations even have it that the Klavan campaign was backed by personal rivals of Pohlak's, or even by the Internal Security Service (ISS).

Pohlak's campaign, such as it was, meanwhile was dogged by allegations of football clubs on paper only, providing the votes, and also a criminal case from the Competition Authority concerning proposals on youth player transfers.

After his re-election, Pohlak has also been engaged in a war of words with Estonian Olympic Committee (EOK) president, and former president of Estonia, Kersti Kaljulaid. Pohlak says Kaljulaid had already declared a palace coup at the EJL before taking office, a claim Kaljulaid denies, saying one conversation held in her office turned "scary."

As a lead-in to the long interview, held at the A. le Coq Arena, "Pealtnägija" gifted a sticker left over from the Klavan campaign bearing the slogan "Jalgpall on kõigile" ("Football is for everyone").

Pohlak said that he was seeing the sticker for the first time. "I have never seen it before – neither this symbol nor this particular sticker," he noted. "The initial feeling… I didn't associate it with anything, and then, when I read it, of course I understood what it was. But perhaps this also describes the situation, that it wasn't really maybe…"

Interviewer Taavi Eilat: Don't you think that although you turned out to be the winner in the elections and the football figures elected you as president, somehow in the eyes of the public the feeling was still created that you lost?

Pohlak: No, no. The way, for example, people came up to me on the street afterwards, happy and thankful and so on. I think that for about a month not a single ferry ride on the Virtsu-Kuivastu (between the mainland and Saaremaa – ed.) line or the reverse direction passed without five or six people coming up to talk about how they followed with support. When someone gets beaten terribly and especially when beaten in one certain environment, then perhaps the counter-reactions are… I say, what you are talking about I do not identify with, it is completely foreign to me.

I must not use the same weapons that the other side uses, if only for the reason…

Eilat: That you must not discuss in public the future, the content, and the program of football? The way this debate was meant to be held?

Pohlak: Vice versa, that was not the substance of the matter, it was simply, I don't know, a form that got created ... You don't get personal, you don't go along with mudslinging, you are able to think of the other side, not as an opponent, but as a human being, about whom you must somehow care.

Let me return once again to this — who was doing the mudslinging? Who humiliated and shamed who?

It was founded on the usual logic, to humiliate the other side, to show the other side to be an idiot, a villain, a crook, whatever. In my opinion, there was no principal talk about deficiencies or shortcomings there, that was purely mockery, and other such things.

A very concrete claim, then, that this was ridicule. How was this mockery carried out? How did you feel about this mockery?

I really don't want to carry on with this topic.

That whole bunch who were working in the background there, that was a disingenuous posse. Those who have in the same way milled, as it were, bread from sh*t, for the politicians. Football, as perhaps a different kind of community, where people know who is who, where it is not possible to convince anyone otherwise; this is the reason why it didn't work out.

What do you mean then? Milling bread from sh*t and making Klavan a president?

I mean when impressions get created, when the matter actually has no substance but impressions are created. If it had been a so-called wider election, like the crowd who surround that who are usually used to organizing, then you would be able to fool people.

There were so many different people in team Klavan and so many ideas in the platform: Is there anything you will carry over from his program?

Yes, let's say a few foci, for example the IT theme. I can't imagine how football could be led by people who have absolutely no connection to the field. Completely unrealistic.

So the talk, that for example a former commander of the defense forces could perhaps help with discipline and team spirit and maintaining that, does not convince you?

Are you being naïve or just acting? How can it be that a military man on the board could somehow influence the field via discipline? This despite the fact it can also be noted that during Herem's time, a sports company was wound up, and plus he has not been a very sports-friendly figure, right? It is clear why people like that were brought in – simply to create the impression of it being some deadly serious matter.

I have not only thought, but I also know quite a lot of things. Attitudes towards me in society are still somewhat polarized. And well, all kinds of interesting things have been brought and shown to me, but…

But still, now the theories are going whackier still, to the point that investigative institutions have been approached with complaints against you. Who exactly from, maybe is not important. But you have information that basically the matter has been attempted to be pushed on at the level of state institutions?

Not just information, but knowledge.

But what does that mean? What is that knowledge?

I will not go further from this point, but surely Ragnar Klavan was not the first person who the EJL presidency was offered to. There have been quite a few more people like that.

Who could "offer" it though?

You won't be getting any more out of me here on this.

But the TV viewer will understand that you say you have knowledge that someone offered that position to Ragnar Klavan. Knowledge that such things have been done in investigative bodies and you…

Let it stay for posterity. History will record that Pohlak beat Klavan with twice as many votes, and now he names as his biggest challenges in football the development of the Estonian Premium League and the stability of financing.

I don't know if anyone other than Kersti herself believes what she has said.

Nothing like that happened? (Referring to the conversation in Kaljulaid's office – ed.).

Absolutely [not]. Being an insider on this matter myself, knowing who that person has been – I mean the president of the republic – knowing how we communicated before she became [EOK] president, then all this is so absurd. Right up to those very claims. One can only wonder where we have got to.

You did go to that office, that's a fact?

Yes, of course.

And no banging on the office with hands or head?

Absolutely not. I was, how shall we say, startled by her comments. How can a person talk like that?

What did she say to you that was so frightening?

How Veiks was pressing her terribly to make a statement, but she still… she may be Veiks's (Paide football club chair Veiko Veskimäe – ed.) and Raku's friend, but she will not make that statement, and whoever wins the fair fight, to him she will send a congratulatory message. Which, of course, she has not done. Listening to all that tone and the whole thing, I didn't comprehend where I was.

This matter was for you a thing, and a problem, and you overreacted?

No, I did not overreact in any way, I remained completely calm. It was hard, of course, as I take such things very close to heart. I don't understand how a person can act like that.

Kersti Kaljulaid is quite a force of nature no doubt about it. Does it suit you to deal with people like that, or is it instead difficult?

No, I don't have any issues. The question is not one of forcefulness. The question always ultimately comes down to reasonableness, or whether, when a person speaks, it is clear speech or confused speech, whether they lie or tell the truth, whether they are sincere or fake. That someone is more or less forceful: There really is no issue there.

Let's change the subject. You became a member of UEFA's executive committee, a key role. Now you don't have to live hand to mouth, as you told me in an interview back in 2018. 13,000 [euros] every month goes straight into the bank account, just like that. Does one have to do anything substantive there, or how does the work proceed?

Yes, but I would say that the volume of my activities there before was about the same, even when I wasn't a member of the executive committee, because I am that type of active person and I have, on my own initiative, asked for certain responsibilities and dealt with certain responsibilities. The volume has increased a little.

Recently the issue has been made public that UEFA has supported Russian clubs even during wartime with nearly €10 million, while Ukrainian clubs have not been supported. What is your moral judgment on an act like that?

It is difficult if not impossible to give a moral judgment on that, as the way the press has presented it… again, once more – UEFA's executive committee has not discussed these matters. But, knowing the mechanisms that exist, then I would think that actually the situation is plain, meaning that they are simply acting according to some rules.

Why is the Russian Football Association still a UEFA member?

Because it is a UEFA member. Right now it does not take part in competitions, but it is a UEFA member, and it has not pulled out and no one has expelled it.
But as a member of the executive committee you could make a proposal to expel Russia from UEFA?

Honestly I don't know that, but I would state that that would be a very strange proposal to make.

But you also said in your answer to that question at the beginning that it is very difficult to give a moral judgment; but why is it so that here it is difficult to give, when in Estonia's view the positions are certainly black and white?

Well, because what is written in the papers is most likely not true.

But giving money to Russian clubs – it's still not a good look?

Yes, it can be so. If you look at it from that angle, then yes. But certainly it can also be looked at from another angle.

I believe some might say in response to that, that nothing depends on you being there at UEFA, and you can't even manage to make a proposal to take money away from Russia. From that Russia which is killing people in Ukraine.

Yes, such a link can be made, but it is very difficult for me to take responsibility for it; I am an extreme pacifist from that angle. I do not recognize any war… that any war could be somehow wise or smart.

But all the more so then? If you condemn all wars, then it is all the more important that wars do not arise, that no one get to start a war, that the party starting the war would not even have money for waging war. And then we come back to the question that their money must be taken away.

And then? Well, taking money away from Russian football clubs would hardly change the war. I think to do that, something else would have to be done. And in my view it is even, I don't know, somewhat cynical to talk about it in that way, because actually what would be needed is – and I repeat once more – also the ending of other conflicts. At every moment, when we speak here, sitting right here in the stadium, then actually someone, somewhere is dying. No matter on which side and why, but they are someone's father, brother, husband, son. And when you think and feel about it that way, then to make from it… for me for example, it touches me personally very strongly, and to make from it some kind of, I don't know, propagandist tool or whatever. I don't want to go along with that, simply don't want to. I want this, and all other wars to end.

So then also the fact that there is a Russian woman with influential roots in a relatively high position in UEFA, that doesn't bother you somehow? You don't think she also should leave that post, that it isn't important?

Firstly, I don't know who she is. I see that somewhere someone has outlined her. I have never seen her in any role anywhere. I don't know what she thinks. I don't know what she feels, I don't know who she is. How can I be judge over her? She is, after all, a human being, all the same.

If she has reached such a high position in Russia, then surely she is still regime-minded, in terms of the current regime. Or can it not be put so simply?

I cannot answer that question, it goes for me a little beyond how I feel the world and think about the world. I try still to think about people humanly, and give every person a chance. I will not express an opinion just for the sake of expressing an opinion. I feel feelings inside myself. And I think my thoughts. But to just start, I don't know, shooting someone down – figuratively or whatever – well, I don't want to do that.

So then at least during the time when you are in UEFA's executive committee – this term is for how long?

Four years.

Russia won't have to leave during that time then? Or its leading figures?

We haven't talked about that. Also that woman you are talking about, I can't say that she is a leading figure in Russian football whatsoever. Again, coming back to that same sticker – somewhere some impressions were created for oneself, those impressions were believed, life was lived according to those impressions, and then later one wondered why real life is different.

It is exactly the same thing that I, steeped in football, having grown up in it, operating on all layers, am being somehow persuaded by you about something, that some things are some way, yet for me those connections don't arise at all. As those everyday life things… I don't know, they just aren't there, anywhere. They simply aren't.

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