Romanian Football Federation’s former head prosecuted for embezzlement

Mircea Sandu, the former president of the Romanian Football Federation (FRF) is being prosecuted, along with other people, for the formation of an organized crime group, embezzlement and money laundering. He has been charged with illegally taking EUR 740,000 from the FRF patrimony. The money came from concluding a contract on the construction of a football center in Buftea, Ilfov county, between 2009 and 2010, according to the prosecutors of the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT). The defendants created a fictitious circuit through which several contracts were awarded to companies controlled by members of the criminal group. The money from the contracts concluded with the Romanian Football Federation was transferred via those contracts, prosecutors said. A part of those amounts went back to the members of the criminal group disguised in the form of "associated loan restitution", "dividends", according to DIICOT. Jail sentence for former head of the Romanian Professional Football League editor@romania-insider.com