The Constanța lighthouse is not doing well either sportingly or economically. After the 4th stage of the play-out, the team dropped to 12th place, one point from the 13th place, and the club’s accounting was in the red in 2025, after several years with profit. The Dobrogean group failed to sell any more players, and it shows.
During the presentation conference of Flavius Stoican (48 years old) as coach, Gică Popescu (58 years old), president and majority shareholder, revealed that he had to make several restructurings within the club. At the same time, he waived his own salary for an indefinite period.
“As you know, since 2019, since I became president, with the exception of last year, the Lighthouse has been in surplus every year. Moreover, I think we are the club in Romania with the largest amount received from sponsors. With us, that financial deficit that existed all the time was covered with the sums coming from the sale of players.
When we took over the majority stake from Gică, the first objective set was to get rid of this budget deficit. It is very difficult to wait to sell a player to cover this deficit.
We needed to do some restructuring, there will probably be more. I think we have a pretty bushy organizational chart. We probably wouldn’t have taken certain measures if we had mountains of money in our accounts.
You know very well that in recent years we have not sold many players. I’m a very responsible guy and I can’t afford to put the club in a delicate financial situation. I make decisions based on the money we have.
I’ll tell you the first decision I made: I gave up my salary for an indefinite period. I will not take a salary until the team is back on the plus side.
I think it was the most normal decision, it is an example that I give to my colleagues that the situation is not very rosy. The one who sacrificed himself first was me“, declared Gică Popescu during the press conference.
In the past, in order not to complicate the economic situation of the club, Gică Hagi (61 years old) accepted to collect a salary of only 500 euros per month.
