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<\/p>\n
Nothing sparks
\noff more heated debates in Romania save for politics and football. If in
\npolitics, likes and dislikes are shared between the left and the right, between
\nthose in power and the opposition, between one politician or another, the
\nnational football side is believed to represent all the Romanians. And everyone
\nseems to share the belief of a former football star, Sorin Cartu, according to
\nwhom, we’ve had the most lackluster national team since the 70s, after the
\nRomanian eleven came a cropper in their attempt to qualify for the round of 16 at
\nEURO 2016 in France. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
After conceding a one-nil defeat to Albania on June 19th,
\nan unprecedented result since 1948, our footballers ended up in the last
\nposition of Group A with only one point out of three games. In the first two
\nmatches, Romania had been outperformed by the host country 1-2, holding
\nSwitzerland to a one-all draw in their second game. Before calling for the
\nresignation of the headcoach and the bosses at the Federation, Romanian sports
\ndaily Gazeta Sporturilor wrote: ‘with
\noutmoded headcoach Anghel Iordanescu at the helm, our team proved to be in dire
\nneed of a working attack strategy, putting up a show with a lot of mistakes in
\nthe defence line and by its goalie.’ <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
A week after
\nRomania’s failure at Euro 2016, the Romanian Football Federation chief, Razvan
\nBurleanu, has announced that the national team’s coach will not have his
\ncontract prolonged; Iordanescu’s contract is due to expire this summer. His
\nreplacement is to be announced by the end of EURO 2016, Burleanu has also told
\na news conference in which he blamed the recent failure on the disastrous
\nsituation inherited from his predecessor, Mircea Sandu, who withdrew in 2014
\nafter almost half a century of discretionary rule of the federation. Burleanu
\nhas described the situation as a ‘desert’ or a ‘swamp’, and to a certain
\nextent, pundits agree with him, pointing the finger at the endemic corruption
\nin the Romanian football, which is on the brink of bankruptcy and at the bottom
\nend of competitive sports. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Both Sandu and
\nthe former head of the Professional Football League, Dumitru Dragomir are
\nfacing corruption charges in several legal investigations. Numerous former
\nagents, club chairs and owners have already been placed behind bars.
\nDebt-burdened football clubs are struggling with insolvency and some are already
\nin the red. If their predecessors in the 90s were in the lineups of famous
\nsides such as Real Madrid, Barcelona, AC Milan or Ajax Amsterdam, Romanian
\ninternational players are today substitutes of teams in the Balkans or the Persian
\nGulf. However, all these are nothing but poor excuses for the lack of
\nprofessionalism of the incumbent Federation bosses, who seem to have come out
\nof the blue, and are being held in place with support from the political class
\nand the intelligence services, as newspapers speculate. Preliminaries for the
\nWorld Cup 2018 in Russia are due to begin on September 4th, and
\nbeing part of a group, which also includes Denmark, Montenegro, Armenia and
\nKazahstan, Romania stands poor chances to qualify. <\/p>\n
\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Romania’s shameful elimination from Euro 2016, and also the chronic problems in the Romanian football are these days making headlines in Bucharest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":69110,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[29133,38540,38539,32118],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-69109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-euro-2016","tag-national-team","tag-romanian-football","tag-romanian-football-federation"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n