aparent offtopic[sau cum este reflectata realitatea politico-fotbalistica din Ro in presa britanica]
About 1.5million ethnic Hungarians live in Transylvania, one of the largest minorities in Europe. While Hungarians continue to complain about discrimination, many Romanians view them as a suspicious fifth column who refuse to integrate or speak the language of the country they inhabit. Gheorghe Funar, the "Mad Mayor" of Cluj in the 1990s, thrived on the division and delighted in bizarre provocations such as painting the town's kerbstones and street furniture in Romania's national colours and scrubbing from public statues evidence of Hungarian heritage.
Gheorghe "Gigi" Becali, the president of Steaua, spat vitriol at CFR last season - "It would be a national shame if a team of foreigners, a Hungarian team, represents Romania in the Champions League," he said. It was not lost on Becali that Steaua assisted CFR's path to the big league by improving Romania's UEFA coefficent the previous year and guaranteeing a place in the Champions League group phase to the title-winners.
However, the multi-ethnic region of Transylvania has a long tradition of tolerance and education that has survived the Ceausescu era and the Funar years. Cluj is booming. Foreign investment has poured in. Wage levels have soared as firms such as Nokia and Siemens coax workers to their new plants. Malls have sprouted in the past few years, the largest of which is in Paszkany's portfolio.
From his office in Cluj's new hilltop 24,000-seat stadium, the club's owner, who is only a quarter Hungarian, looked out over the city. "I don't care about nationality, or where the players I sign come from, only how well they play for CFR," he said. "I speak four languages. In the dressing-room the language is English. We have many Hungarian fans but also many who follow us from Portugal and southern Europe. Most of our fans are Romanian anyway, as most of Cluj is Romanian. CFR is a typically Transylvanian team. It stands for a Europe without borders."
Perhaps nowhere else in Eastern Europe do two large ethnic groups stand together supporting the same team. The Hungarian-dominated KVSC ultra group share chanting slots with their Romanian comrades in the Commando Gruia section. Afterwards, the two choirs often join forces for communal singalongs in the club bars, these days usually to celebrate victory. As Radu, an ethnic-Romanian IT professional, said between songs: "Bucharest and Budapest mean little to us, we are CFR fans, proud to be from Cluj, proud to be Transylvanian."
"sursa: the times