Football Flash

Former International footballer Adrian Mutu will take up the position of sports manager of the Romanian Football Federations technical staff.

Florin Orban, 12.10.2017, 13:43

Mutu will mainly be responsible for the national football team’s relations with domestic clubs, as well as with clubs from abroad. Mutu will thus be leaving Dinamo Bucharest Football Club, where he currently holds the position of general manager.

The European Football Union on Wednesday made public the final structure of the four groups as part of the new competition titled UEFA League of Nations. The 55 European teams have been divided into four tiers, A,B,C,D in keeping with their positions in the national teams’ ranking quota, set up by the UEFA after the preliminaries of the 2018 edition of the World Cup.

The competition will kick-start in September 2018. Romania has been included in the third tier, that is in group C, jointly with Hungary, Scotland, Slovenia, Greece, Serbia, Albania, Norway, Montenegro, Israel, Bulgaria, Finland, Cyprus, Estonia, and Lithuania. Teams will be distributed through the drawing of lots in a group made up of three teams, and in three of the groups, made up of four teams each. The first four teams in descending order will be promoted to League B, while the last four teams will be relegated to league D, starting with the 2020 edition.

League A is made of Europe’s best 12 sides: Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, France, England, Switzerland, Italy, Poland, Iceland, Croatia and the Netherlands. In this league, the national teams are distributed in four groups made up of three sides each.

The first four teams in descending order will play the semi-finals and the finals in June 2019. The last four teams will be relegated to league B in the 2020 edition of the competition.

League B brings together 12 teams as well, Austria, Wales, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Ukraine, Ireland, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Turkey. The first four teams are promoted in League A, while the four last teams will be relegated to League C.

League D is made of 16 teams, Azerbaijan, Macedonia, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Latvia, The Faeroe Islands, Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Republic of Moldova, Liechtenstein, Malta, Andorra, Kosovo, San Marino, Gibraltar. For each of the four tiers, the first four teams that were unable to go through to EURO 2010 will have a play off match if they want to book a ticket for the final tournament. The drawing of lots for the group stage will be held in Lausanne on January 24th 2018.