Sports Club

The Romanian football championship resumes at the end of this week with the matches of its 22nd leg. The regular football season in Romania includes 30 legs and according to the Professional Football League is due to end on March 11th. It will be followed by the play-off and play-out stages. The play-off stage involves the participation of the first six sides in the ranking and includes 10 legs. The sides from the 7th to the 16th position will be playing in the play-out stage which has 9 legs.

The side on the 1st position in the play-off stage is qualified for the Champions League's preliminaries whereas the second one will be playing in the preliminaries of the Europa Conference League.

Three sides will be vying for the second place in the Conference League. These are the first two elevens in the play-out stage and the winner will be playing the side on the third position in the play-off. The winner of Romania's Football Cup will be also playing in the Conference League. The football sides to demote to the second domestic league will also be from the play-offs section of the football championships. The sides on the 9th and 10th positions will automatically demote whereas the teams ranking 7th and 8th will be playing tie matches against the second leaguers ranking third and fourth.

Farul Constanța is presently topping the table with 45 points followed by the en-titre champions, CFR Cluj with a point less. FCSB, Rapid Bucharest and Universitatea Craiova come next, each with 38 points. The sixth side in the competition's play-off stage is Sepsi Sfântu Gheorghe with 32 points.

The 22nd leg of the domestic football championship kicks off on Friday with two games: Universitatea Cluj versus FC Voluntari and Rapid against Sepsi. On Saturday, Petrolul Ploiești plays the local side of Mioveni, while Universitatea Craiova is up against FC Botoșani on the latter's home turf. On Sunday, FC U Craiova is taking on UTA Arad in a home match, while in Sibiu, local side FC Hermannstadt plays FCSB. The leg ends on Monday when in Ploiesti, southern Romania, Chindia Târgoviște plays FC Argeș, while Ovidiu, on the Black Sea coast, will see the leg's most important match pitching Farul Constanța against CFR Cluj.

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