In Bucharest, Fans of Indebted Football Giant Pay Not to Watch

The world over, the empty terraces of the COVID-19 era have brought many football clubs to the brink of financial collapse. Dinamo, already indebted, is among them. 

Yet the 72 year-old Romanian giant, winner of 18 domestic league titles, is selling more tickets now than it sometimes did before the pandemic struck, thanks to a novel initiative by an association of supporters called Doar ['Just'] Dinamo Bucuresti, or DDB.

None of the 'ticketholders' can attend the games, but the supporters hope the money pouring in will help prevent a player exodus. The players are threatening a strike in January over unpaid wages, following years of mounting debts and unmet promises by investors who took over in the summer.

"So far, DDB has kept the club alive with the socios' contributions, donations, auctions of historic t-shirts and virtual game tickets sold during the pandemic," Robert Thomas, a Dinamo fan and volunteer spokesman for the association, said, referring to DDB members known by the Spanish term 'socios'. 

"The last five home games have been sold out," he told BIRN.

Beer and hotdogs

Once a force to be reckoned with on the European stage, the likes of Dinamo and its fierce rival Steaua have fallen on hard times, performances on the pitch hurt by corruption in the boardroom and apathy in the stands. 

A ban on spectators to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus has made watching a Romanian league match on television an even gloomier experience, and left a deeper hole in already depleted club coffers.

The logo of Dinamo Bucharest Sports Club at the the entrance of Dinamo Sports Club headquarters in Bucharest, Romania, 28 May 2020. Archive photo: EPA-EFE/ROBERT GHEMENT

Yet for an away game on...