A defamatory statement was recently made in a Romanian-language sports website podcast regarding the relationship between Mihai Stoichiță, the technical director of the Romanian Football Federation, and FK Csíkszereda. We discussed this matter with Szondy Zoltán, president of FK Csíkszereda.

A defamatory statement was recently made in a Romanian-language sports website podcast regarding the relationship between Mihai Stoichiță, the technical director of the Romanian Football Federation, and FK Csíkszereda. We discussed this matter with Szondy Zoltán, president of FK Csíkszereda.

– In a Romanian-language sports podcast, an unproven claim was made that Mihai Stoichiță, the technical director of the Romanian Football Federation, receives some kind of benefit from FK Csíkszereda. How much does this claim reflect reality?

– This statement was made by one of the tragicomic figures of Romanian football. Florin Prunea, former goalkeeper of the national team, is well known: for twenty years he has been making strained attempts to become some kind of football executive. So far, he has accumulated failure after failure, and with such statements he tries to draw attention to himself. The website in question, iAMsport.ro, is a scandal-oriented outlet that consistently provides space for attacks against FK Csíkszereda. I obviously do not read it, and I do not believe many ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania read it either. We were contacted by the federation, while they were on their way to the decisive match against Turkey, asking me to see what these people were dealing with.

– In a rather low-quality, multi-hour podcast, a rumor-level “piece of information” was mentioned, which iAMsport.ro later highlighted in a separate article. How seriously should this be taken?

– It must be taken very seriously. One must know that in Romania defamation is no longer punishable by law: the legal concept known as “calomnie” (defamation) has been removed from the criminal code. This is why, in Romanian public discourse—especially in football—there is hardly any talk show or longer interview where participants do not defame each other. Csíkszereda clearly irritates a part of this environment, which is why smear campaigns against us are almost routine.

In this case, it must be taken seriously because the accusation is that we are essentially bribing the second most important person in the federation, moreover off the books, which also implies money laundering. These are serious accusations and cannot be dismissed with a simple wave of the hand by saying “look who is saying it”, because even though the person making the claim is, unfortunately, a nobody—someone who has stained an otherwise respectable sporting career by defaming everyone for the past twenty years—the statement can still have an impact.

If even one person takes this claim seriously, we are already in trouble.

Moreover, it is not only us being attacked—indeed, not primarily us—but rather the federation, as the story suggests, implicitly or explicitly, that the federation “favours” Csíkszereda instead of supporting those who “deserve it”.

It is even added that this information supposedly comes from Csíkszereda, because Florin Prunea allegedly has a friend within the club—of course without naming anyone. The whole situation is almost surreal, but for the reasons mentioned, it deserves to be treated seriously.

If we take it seriously, then one thing is clear: if I were giving someone money off the books, the club could not know about it, because either I give it from the club or I give it off the books. From this, it becomes evident what kind of football executive this Prunea might have been, for whom it seems natural that clubs would operate with undeclared money. Maybe such things existed at his clubs, but certainly not at ours.

The whole story does not even make sense: why would we have to pay Stoichiță two thousand euros? It is well known that I had a good relationship with Mr. Stoichiță even before I became the president of FK Csíkszereda. Moreover, he is not the only official within the federation, of various ranks, with whom I maintain friendly relations. Let us not forget that I was also a sports journalist and moved extensively within the football world. I do not think it is a crime to have friends, and in the meantime Mihai became the technical director of the federation, while I became a club president. When we met at a tournament in the early 1990s, neither of us knew where we would end up.

But where does this whole story start? It starts from the fact that the coach of Farul Constanța and several officials, after the match played against us—and I emphasize, which ended in a 1–1 draw—suggested, or in some cases openly stated, that Stoichiță was present at the match and influenced the referees, and even that whenever he is present here, he influences them.

That is where it all began: Zicu could not digest the result, and from the coach’s hints, Prunea constructed this conspiracy theory and presented it as fact.

But let us try not to think in a “Latin” way. Stoichiță was present at a match where Csíkszereda drew 1–1 with Farul—yes. But two weeks earlier he was not present, and Farul lost 1–0. So who did his presence help? If we think rationally and do not engage in this kind of emotional dramatization, then perhaps I should forbid Mihai from attending Csíkszereda matches, because we lost two points in a match we could have easily won.

Another matter is that we are not “Latin” in this sense and we do not run to the press after matches complaining that we were not awarded a penalty or that a Farul player did not receive a second yellow card. We do not do that, because we know that these smaller or bigger mistakes balance out over the course of a season. That is not a problem. But this is precisely what makes the whole situation ridiculous, because we are talking about a match where Csíkszereda did not gain one point, but lost two.

– Does FK Csíkszereda plan to take any concrete steps in response to this defamation?

– We will not leave this matter as it is. The club’s lawyer will send a letter to iAMsport.ro and to this Mr. Prunea, in which we will demand that they apologize for the false statement—because it is clearly a lie. If they do not apologize, we will take legal action against them.

By the way, to see how credible these people are: if you search for Prunea’s name online, you will find apology after apology. He loves to be in the spotlight and to make false statements, and for him even an apology is another opportunity to appear publicly. This is the type of person we are dealing with, but I emphasize: we will not leave this defamation without consequences.