Romanian football club CFR Cluj officials investigated for embezzlement

The president and the former financier of the Romanian football club CFR Cluj have been questioned by anti-organized crime prosecutors, on Thursday. CFR Cluj president Iuliu Muresan and former financier Arpad Paszkany are suspects in an embezzlement, tax evasion, and money laundering case targeting the club, according to local Mediafax. The prosecutors also conducted 20 searches on Thursday morning, May 19, in Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca, including at the CFR Cluj football club. “There is a reasonable suspicion that, between 2008 and 2013, several people with management or administration responsibilities within a company that owns a sports club have appropriated the sum of EUR 8.48 million from the company’s assets,” reads a statement of the Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT). The criminal activity was allegedly carried out via offshore companies registered in Cyprus and Seychelles, controlled by a member of the organized crime group. These companies allegedly provided sports consulting and and managed player transfers for the club, which the prosecutors believe to be fictitious, according to DIICOT. The investigators believe that large amounts of money were embezzled this way. The club received the money from UEFA for qualifying in the UEFA Champions League group stage. The organized crime group members have also registered fictitious operations in the company’s accounting registry to dodge tax obligations, according to DIICOT. The damage to the state budget amounts to some EUR 1.5 million. CFR Cluj was the first team outside Bucharest to win Romania's top football league in almost 20 years, in the 2007-2008 season. The club qualified directly to the UEFA Champions League group stage that year and played against Chelsea, AS Roma, and Bordeaux, scoring a 2-1 victory against AS Roma in Italy's capital. The club won two more titles in 2010, and 2012, and also went directly into the UEFA Champions League group stage. However, despite these good results and the money it received from UEFA, the club went into insolvency in 2015 as it had debt to its players and to the tax agency ANAF. However, the club avoided bankruptcy and is now in reorganization procedure. CFR Cluj failed to qualify to the Romanian league play-off this season, but won Romania's Cup earlier this week, after a final against Dinamo Bucuresti. Romanian football team CFR Cluj gets EUR 18.4 mln from UEFA Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com