By Jaroslaw Adamowski
August 19 – While Romanian football continues to be rocked by corruption-related scandals, the latest proposal put forward by one of the clubs to introduce more transparency into the Romanian league has sparked controversy. Cornel Sfaiter (pictured), chief executive of Romania’s FC Botosani, has suggested that the chief executives of the clubs competing in the country’s top tier, Liga I, should no longer be allowed to watch matches played by their sides from the subs benches.
“They offend and put pressure on referees,” Sfaiter said, to local news site Prosport.ro. “FC Botosani will take initiative, and we will address the [Romanian league association] LPF and [Romania’s football federation] FRF to ban the clubs’ chief executives from sitting on the bench.”
Sfaiter said that many of the clubs’ CEOs try to exert pressure on the referees and often resort to verbal abuse which could impact on their decisions.
“Such pressure is not normal,” the he said. “There are things which hurt the … image of Romanian football.”
Set up in 2001 and based in Botosani, in north-eastern Romania, the club was promoted to the country’s top tier for the first time in the 2012/2013 Liga I season. FC Botosani’s stadium has a capacity of some 10,000 seats, according to data from the club.
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