“In new times, still new“. Here is the motto of most sports organizations in Romania. The recently held COSR elections showed, once again, the toxic system that has taken over Romanian sport and that is spreading like a “disease“.
Dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. PHOTO: Facebook
Specifically, Mihai Covaliu was re-elected as head of the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee. Unopposed, with 168 votes in favor and 2 abstentions. Further, COSR vice-presidents Răzvan Burleanu (president of the Romanian Football Federation), Elisabeta Lipă (head of the National Sports Agency) and Camelia Potec (head of the Romanian Swimming and Modern Pentathlon Federation) arrived. There were no counter-candidates here either. There were three people in three places.
After some elections which were, in fact, a mere formality, the traditional speeches followed. With the same language of wood so valued in today’s Romania. Here are excerpts from the statements given by Mihai Covaliu:
*It is an honor for me to take over this third mandate as president of the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee. At the same time, it is a challenge. I am proud to be part of this extraordinary team. The fact that I received this trust for another mandate makes me responsible and I am aware of the pressure that is pressing on me, given that I am calm and balanced. Every day I try to take a step forward and I am convinced that together with the new Executive Committee we will succeed in doing everything we promised.
*This co-optation, this partnership that we have by including Răzvan Burleanu as vice-president of COSR, is something normal. Football demonstrated good management, performed well, invested in a young generation that is already starting to be a force in Europe.
An observation is required from the beginning. An undeniable one, based on statistics. “Good management” which Covaliu mentioned, in the case of football, has the following figures, since the Burleanu administration has been at the FRF:
*25 campaigns for the national team and U21, U19 and U17. The record: 19 missed qualifications, six awarded (two for seniors – Euro 2016 and Euro 2024, three for U21 and one for U19). Percentage of qualifications obtained: 24%. Therefore, in the vision of Mihai Covaliu, a “good management” means 76% missed / failed campaigns.
The even worse problem is that the wrapping of nothing in a glossy cover, with snoring speeches and empty of content, is not reduced to the COSR elections that have just passed and which recalled the period before 1989. Unfortunately, the elections, which theoretically it should be an expression of democracy, with as many candidates and as many ideas as possible, they have become a joke at most sports forums in Romania!
“Adevărul” took to task 19 sports federations/organizations that had elections in recent years. In most of them, 12, the vote was “from the eyes of the world“. That is, with only one candidate for the position of president!
Politicized football in Romania
When we see that most elections of some sports forums are organized without opponents, a natural question arises: why?
The answer, in short: because it is known, most of the time, that the president will end up “who should“. I mean, that man “with the back“. And that “back“it is sometimes politically assured. Football offers us the clearest examples in this regard.
The elections for the head of the Professional Football League (LPF) in 2013, when Dumitru Dragomir was removed and Gino Iorgulescu was installed in his place, were intensively prepared behind the scenes. Concretely, the night before the elections, Iorgulescu gathered the presidents of the clubs, i.e. the voters of the next day. The meeting was attended by Liviu Dragnea, executive president of the PSD at the time, plus Victor Ponta, the prime minister of Romania at the time. There are also pictures from that meeting, taken by journalists Costin Ştucan and Cristian Scutariu.
Naturally, after such a mobilization, the next day, Iorgulescu defeated Dragomir, with a score of 11-7. And he could not be removed from the leadership of the LPF since then. In the 2017 elections, Iorgulescu was re-elected with a score of 13-1, having Sorin Drăgoi as his opponent. Five years later, in 2022, there was not even this single opponent, Iorgulescu being re-elected to the applause of the participants.
Răzvan Burleanu. PHOTO: The Truth Archive
At the Romanian Football Federation, the 2014 elections, which brought Răzvan Burleanu to the head of the FRF, at only 29 years old, were even more controversial. 24 hours before, Gică Popescu, the clear favorite at the head of the FRF, was sentenced to prison, with execution, in the “Transfer File”.
Years later, in August 2021 to be more precise, the former deputy, Cristian Rizea, spoke about the behind the scenes of those 2014 elections, in an intervention on the show “Behind the scenes of the Parallel State” of the Realitatea Plus television station. Rizea then declared that Gică Popescu was allegedly arrested on the orders of the former director of the SRI, George Maior, and the former Minister of Defense, Vasile Dîncu, with the complicity of Victor Ponta and Gabriel Oprea. The goal would have been the introduction of Răzvan Burleanu to the scene of power.
“George Maior is a great microbist, as is Vasile Dîncu. Gică Popescu was also convicted on the orders of George Maior and Vasile Dîncu, with the complicity of Victor Ponta and Gabi Oprea. I’m sorry for Gică Popescu, he didn’t deserve something like that, he’s a symbol of Romania. But that’s lifeRizea said.
Arriving at the head of the FRF, even Burleanu could not be put down. And since then he had some emotions for keeping his position only in 2018, when “when sifted” on Ionuț Lupescu, score 168-78. Marcel Pușcaș (8 votes) and Ilie Drăgan (0 votes) also participated in that election. Four years later, in 2022, no one proposed to challenge Burleanu in the FRF elections. And according to the federation’s website, the incumbent president was re-elected with no votes against and no abstentions. Certainly, Ceaușescu would have been envious.
“Some organizations with a totalitarian background”
Returning to the present, only one journalist from all the Romanian media pointed out the anomaly of elections without counter-candidates that is seen more and more often in our sport. In “Gazeta Sporturilor”, Oana Dușmănescu wrote an editorial in which she told the truth, after the COSR elections. Here are some excerpts from that text:
*At the pinnacle of Romanian sport, the concept of healthy competition, multiple candidates, debate and argument, all of these melted like ice cream under the sun of the summer that just ended.
*The lack of contradiction of ideas, the total absence of opposition, giving up before some people, after all, are the signs of a group that has given up the fight.
*What appears to be continuity is, in fact, deadlock. A world caught in the tentacles of relationships, rapprochements, complicities, which excluded any other variant of leadership – resignation led to eternal gratitude.
*All the confidence of sports blowing in a few pairs of hands. Blindly. Without voters asking questions, having doubts. Like in a dystopia where no one dares to put up even an iota of resistance.
*Totalitarian organizations are not families where all the children of the patriarch are doing well. I only give the illusion of unity and common struggle for a great cause: as many medals as possible for the country!
A toxic environment, results to match
The sick system in Romanian sports, with the organization of elections without counter-candidates, offers some decent results.
Of course, COSR now boasts the record from the 2024 Olympics, with nine medals won. Indeed, there is progress here compared to the previous two editions, at Tokyo 2020 and Rio 2016, when the tricolor delegation returned to the country with four medals each time. Overall, however, if we look at the history of our participation in the Summer Olympics, we see that even the nine medals won in Paris this year represent a poor result. Because, including in the first years after the Revolution, at the Olympic Games in 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004, Romania never dropped below 18 medals! But now we are having a big celebration after an edition with nine rankings on the podium, given that, before the 2024 Olympic Games, the sports federations had made a commitment to win a total of 13 medals!
The stake, just like in politics: “the jackass”
If the re-election of a competent head, at the head of a performing federation, with or without an opponent, is an acceptable thing, on the other hand, it is incomprehensible to gather mandates for a federation president without results. Unfortunately, the results are a stake only for “crowd“. In sports, as in politics, the real stake of those who lead is “bone“.
Except for the Football Federation, which is self-financed, the other sports forums in Romania are “connected” to the state budget. And, in 2024, Romanian sport received over 114 million euros from the Government. A very small amount, if we compare it to the waste of public money in our country, but one big enough, so that a head of the federation can hold on to the chair with both hands.
