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| A Failed Opening |
| (2011-07-27) |
| Last updated: 2011-07-28 14:05 EET |
 Scheduled for August 10th, the friendly match in Bucharest between Romania's and Argentina's national football teams has been cancelled. With this, the official opening of the National Arena, one of the largest investments in Romania in the past few years, has also been compromised.
Not only have the performances of Romanian football decreased significantly in recent years, but its image has as well. Announced with great pride half a year ago, the opening of the new stadium in Bucharest, the National Arena, was supposed to include a friendly match between Romania's national football team and former world champions Argentina, on August 10th. But the plan failed deplorably.
On Tuesday, the Romanian Football Federation officially confirmed that the corresponding institution in Buenos Aires cancelled the trip to Bucharest. Angered with the recent performance of their national team in Copa America, the leaders of Argentinean football sacked manager Sergio Batista and cancelled the training programme he had put together, including the match against Romania. Romanian Football Federation president Mircea Sandu warned that Romania would contact FIFA and claim damages from the Argentineans, who breached a contract signed back in October 2010, under which they had already received over 700 thousand euros for the match.
Romanian football fans blame Sandu and other Federation leaders. As many as 38 thousand tickets have been sold out of the total 55 thousand, and people were eager to see the Argentine stars Messi, Tevez, Mascherano or Higuain at work. The Romanian Federation is now trying to patch things up and book a friendly match with another team as soon as possible.
The media suggest, not without sarcasm, that after the Portugal option failed as well, Romania might as well play with Uzbekistan, San Marino or Andorra, which are at the bottom of the world's football standings. Journalists and fans agree that this failure is owing to the poor performance of Romanian football teams under Mircea Sandu's leadership. In terms of football, they argue, Romania is no longer a worthy partner.
Over the past decade, the national team has only managed to qualify to one final tournament in European or world championships, and in the current Euro 2012 preliminary group it ranks below Bosnia, Albania and Belarus. In their turn, Romanian teams have long been absent from the final stages of club competitions.
Meanwhile, for administrative reasons that have nothing to do with sport performances, a legendary team like Universitatea Craiova has seen its affiliation to the national football federation terminated, and last season's vice-champions Politehnica Timisoara have been relegated to the second league.
According to critics, abuse, corruption and mediocrity are the trademarks of Mircea Sandu's long-lasting and unchallenged leadership of the federation, something not even the latest scandal seems to be able to put an end to.
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