Mircea Sandu: Missing out on EURO 2020, one of the great sufferings, failures of Romanian football

The former chair of the Romanian Football Federation, Mircea Sandu, the initiator of the candidacy submission to co-organize EURO 2020 by Romania, said in an interview for AGERPRES that this competition should "teach us how to behave and organize" prestige sporting events in the future. Mircea Sandu believes that from a infrastructure development viewpoint Bucharest did not do its tasks, referencing an expressway to link Henri Coanda Airport to Bucharest. He mentioned that Romania's national team's failure to qualify to EURO 2020 is one of the great sufferings of Romanian football given that Bucharest is among the host cities. "Missing out on this objective [EURO 2020 - e.n.] is one of the great sufferings, failures of Romanian football," says Sandu, adding that "To organize a European tournament and not be present, when you only had to push the door a little, because the doors were open, is painful. Of course it is a great loss, (...) you lose your image, you lose a lot of money, you lose the trust of players, of fans, there are losses, nothing is positive." Mircea Sandu also said that "the fact that Romania lost the UEFA Executive Committee chair meant a very important loss. If you're there first hand, to say so, you can more easily convince people you can do good things." About Hungary's investments in football outside its borders, Mircea Sandu states that "it's an interesting matter that the Hungarian government is doing and that the Romanian state is not, that is to support minorities or areas where they have minorities on a sporting level. I haven't heard of Romania building a single school in Serbia, in the Serbian Banat or in Ukraine. To Moldova we send some vaccines, the rest of it is just showboating." In regards to the European Championship, Mircea Sandu said that the favorites will be "the great powers still. It was a surprise when Croatia qualified to the final of the World Cup, but I don't think such a step will happen again (...) I believe the favorites are still the big ones, still Spain, still Germany, still France, Italy or England." Finally, on UEFA Europa Conference League (UECL), Mircea sandu said "they waved a competition at us, a competition for the poor, so we wouldn't make a fuss, but anyway, who would kick up a fuss from us? Nobody would." AGERPRES (RO - author: Adrian Tone, editor: Mihai Tenea; EN - author: Razvan-Adrian Pandea, editor: Simona Iacob)