Romanian football officials jailed for corruption
Eight of the most influential people in Romanian football received prison sentences for fraud, money laundering and tax dodging.
Bogdan Matei, 05.03.2014, 13:53
The list of people sent to prison by the Bucharest Court of Appeal on Tuesday includes some key figures in Romania’s most popular sport, football.
Two of the best-known names on this list are the brothers Ioan and Victor Becali, the most successful football agents in Romania who have been handling transfers abroad for some of the best players in the country.
Mihai Stoica, who is currently the general manager of the best-known sports club in the country, Steaua Bucharest, has been tried for acts committed while he was a president of the Otelul Galati football club.
Other prison sentences were handed over to Rapid’s George Copos and Dinamo’s Cristian Borcea and Gheorghe Netoiu, shareholders and presidents of their respective clubs at a time when their teams won the national championship and were taking part in European competitions.
Jean Padureanu, another name on the list of eight, was involved for decades with the Gloria Bistrita club, which was famous not so much for its performance on field, but rather for its backstage dealings.
Of the eight high-profile figures sentenced on Tuesday, the only one to attract the sympathy and regrets of the public is the ex-player Gheorghe Popescu, who was sentenced as an accomplice of the Becali brothers. Having played 115 games for the national team and won countless trophies for club teams like PSV Eindhoven, FC Barcelona and Galatasaray Istanbul, Popescu was the most likely to win the upcoming election for the president of the Romanian Football Federation.
The charges brought against the eight officials included fraud, money laundering and tax evasion during the transfer of 12 football players to foreign clubs. These illegal transactions cost the state close to 1.5 million dollars in tax and 4 football clubs over 10 million dollars in transfer fees. The trick was as simple as it was effective: the transfer price was in fact higher than the one declared for tax purposes and transferred to the respective Romanian club. The rest of the money went straight into the pockets of the agents, club owners and shareholders involved in the transfers.
According to media and football fans alike, this kind of corrupt dealings is one of the main explanations for the mediocrity of Romanian football.
