Still football has always been the most important and money-making business for our next opponent.
So, who is the owner?
In late 1990s when Viorel Păunescu was president of the club affluent businessman Gigi Becali joined the shareholders’ council. He cooperated with military department. Becali started buying shares and in 2003 he owned 64% of them. Later he established AFC Steaua and drove its processor to bankruptcy.
In 2007 Becali reassigned shares of the club he owned to his nephews and thus officially he had nothing to do with the Steaua.
On May 20 2013 Gigi Becali was sentenced to three years in prison. The lawsuit concerned Ministry of Defense of Romania landed property.
Last week Ministry of Defense gained suit at law and now it’s prohibited for the club to use Steaua brand, including name, logo and colours.
Negotiations between club representatives and military department have already started, but in case they won’t be a success Ministry of Defense will try to get compensation from income of the club (2004-2014).
Meanwhile Becali has already ordered to register new brand mark.
By the way, in the previous domestic league match Steaua players wore yellow kit with official emblem of the club covered.
Sweet illusions with bitter flavour
After the Europa League group stage drawing everyone started recalling Steaua lopsided victory against FC Dynamo Kyiv (4:1) on September 13 2006. Many Romanians didn’t consider the White-Blues, who haven’t won the domestic title for a long period of time, to be worthy opponent in battle for the first place in the group.
6:0 victory against Aalborg BK in the first game could whet Steaua, but in following Europa League matches they won only once, so at the moment champions of Romania are the “odd man out”.
Still Steaua representatives believe in their superiority over Kyivans. They are sure they’ll qualify for the knock-out stage. In this situation one may recall actions of Volodymyr and Vitaliy Klychko. They usually responded to opponent’s broad statements with knock-outs…
Oleh Zadernovskyi
Copyright © 2014 FC Dynamo Kyiv
