What Is The Name Of... ?

People are different. It is very hard to find 2 men with the same life philosophy. This is way there are groups and clubs were people who feel the same join to reach a common goal. One of these clubs is Universitatea Craiova. The real one, not the fake one which tries to not be ashamed nowadays. Gica Craioveanu was a great football player. A very important person in early 90's for our club. He moved in Spain when sold by our team and had a nice career for Real Sociedad San Sebastian, Villareal and Getafe. On June 20th 2013 he came back in Craiova being determined to help Universitatea Craiova again. He declared: "There is no other Universitatea Craiova. It can not be another club with this name because we have the glory and the fans and we made history for this team."

After 7 days the mayor of Craiova, Lia Olguta Vasilescu, declares: "We will make another team because Adrian Mititelu has no more money. It will be a new team as a mix between the sport club, city hall of Craiova and a businessman who loves Universitatea Craiova".

She did what she said and Gica Craioveanu joined this new team. The only problem is he said this new team called CSU Craiova is actually the original football team, the one he used to play when he mad history for Universitatea Craiova. This new club had a 3 years history. Craioveanu was their image director being one of the biggest fans of them. 

After these 3 years the truth came to surface. The investor of  CSU Craiova was exposed and arrested for corruption. The evidences show that Mihai Rotaru was guilty for a €60 million fraud. After this event his football team went down in the table, they sold the most representative football players and now are trying to resist in Romanian first football league. 2 weeks ago, Gica Craioveanu declared again: "I don't trust anymore the new project of CSU Craiova. It is not what they promised and I don't think they represent Craiova anymore."

There is only one question now: "WHAT IS THE NAME OF SUCH A PERSON ?" How do you call someone how jumps from a boat to another depending of his interests ?

CSU Means Nothing

CSU Craiova stands for Sports Club Universitatea Craiova. This was the initial name of the mother club which included athletics, football, handball, voleyball and bridge during communist regime in Romania. FCU left this big club and became Football Club Universitatea Craiova in 1990 and continued like this until 2011 when it was abusively destroyed by Romanian Football Federation. I explained in the previous posts how this could be possible. If you take a look at recently uncovered Platini-Blatter case and taking into account Mircea Sandu (former FRF president) was one of the biggest supporters of this corrupted couple it is easy to understand what a big Mafia our club had to deal with.

CSU just came in 2013 in Romanian football trying to replace the old FCU in fan's mind and in the official statistics. There were serious money quantities pumped in this project at the beginning but the managers made one mistake after another. The most important was they didn't knew the public in Craiova and the local habits. They tried to replace the old team with people without any connection with this city. They never had a real audience and, on a stadium which gathered 50,000 viewers in the past, CSU had at most 4000 people in tribunes.  In many games they played with only a couple of hundreds watching them. 

Today everything is a mess there. The main investor is in prison being accused of corruption. There are no more money involved in this project. The team lost the contact with the play-off places in the table and now is trying to resist but the last results are very bad. The managers tried to attract in their stuff old glories of Craiova's football, they had Cartu and Sandoi as trainers but this move wasn't a long term success. The City Hall of Craiova took part in this new club (having an old name) but they only made aggressive declarations and nothing really important for the football in Craiova. 

There is only one conclusion after all these facts: the City Hall doesn't matter, the old name CSU means nothing, the old glories of the club doesn't mean anything, money doesn't count in this equation. The only important are the fans of Universitatea Craiova and they can not be bullshited by politicians or people in key positions in Romanian Football Federation.

Universitatea Craiova Died And Nobody Cares

February 25th 2014 was the last day "Universitatea" Craiova existed. Actually this is the last video regarding our football team. A boring winter day. A pale shadow of the squad which literally impressed Europe 30 years ago. 

Being relegated in the second league of Romanian football, "Universitatea" Craiova couldn't finish the championship. The main reason was a serious lack of founds. Actually in short time the management was forced to declare bankruptcy. This video show the players demanding their financial rights and complaining about training conditions. Craiova is a city for 250.000 inhabitants. People there is very bad organised and divided because their political views or financial interests. This matter of facts lead to no way out situation . The municipality observed all these defects and founded its own football team having the same name and symbols as the old one. FRF (Romanian Football Federation) suddenly adopted the new club and in this way something incredible happened: the old U Craiova played against the new U Craiova in an official competition... twice. Both games ended in the same way 0-0.

Today it exists the club of municipality only. It promoted in the first Romanian football league and they pretending they are the same club as the old one. Even the official documents show the evidence of 2 total different football teams, nobody recognizes this true fact. After a difficult start in the first season in first Romanian football league, CSU Craiova (the name of the new team) managed to play 14 consecutive games without losing. Many people wondered how was that possible. Anyhow, now they are playing their second season in Liga I and the situation in the table shows this is a mediocre squad. They are in the middle of the table trying hard to qualify for playoff. Two weeks ago, the owner of this club got in prison because of corruption being suspected of a fraud of 60 millions €. It is useless to mention CSU is not making any good result since then. 

On the other hand, FCU Craiova (the name of the old team) tried hard to solve the bankruptcy problem. This matter is in the lawyers hands now and the signs are very bad. Long processes, contradictory court solutions, many interests involved and a dead end for football players and the fans of this club. Practically 65 years of tradition must be buried and people is forced to accept the clone team as being their own. If you ever seen "Changing" directed by Angelina Jolie you can understand the situation of Universitatea Craiova's ultras.