Disaster in superlig! 7 years of financial chaos, huge debts and treadmill losses for CFR Cluj, FCSB and Rapid

GSP.ro has analyzed all the financial reports of the six teams in the current play-off of the Superligi, starting with 2018 until now. CFR Cluj, the team sponsored by Nelu Varga, registered losses of 30 million euros, while Mihai Rotaru and Craiova University were on the entire analyzed period.
CFR Cluj, FCSB, Rapid, Dinamo, U Cluj and Craiova University officially submitted their last financial report for 2024 at the Ministry of Finance.
GSP.ro wrote in detail about the funds that have entered the accounts of the six teams qualified in the current play-off of the Superligion.

Of these, only three ended the fiscal year past profit: FCSB, with an additional 3.5 million euros, U Cluj, with just over one million euros, and CFR Cluj, with 630,000 euros, after four consecutive years of loss.
What does the financial data reveal for the period 2018–2024?
Based on the financial reports published by the teams from Superliga, GSP.ro has analyzed their financial situation since 2018.
We analyzed, year by year, the total financial situation of each club, with an emphasis on the final result: profit or loss.
But there are two exceptions:
- Cluj University, whose data are available only from 2021, thus missing three years of analysis,
- Quickly, for which the report is missing for 2018.
What do the paper calculations say according to the official documents submitted to the Ministry of Finance? Craiova University and Mihai Rotaru breathe healthy from a financial point of view, while CFR Cluj and Nelu Varga are facing an increased decline.
Craiova University is best … but it is due to Mihai Rotaru
We stop at Craiova University! Although the club has registered losses in the last four years, the general financial balance for 2018-2024 is positive.
This is because the profit obtained between 2018 and 2020 was higher than the losses of 2021-2024.
In 2020, Craiova University achieved the biggest profit in Romanian football – almost 12 million euros! It was, in fact, the only team of the six in the play-off that ended that year with a positive balance.
Moreover, in 2018, the first year analyzed, Craiova was again on Plus, with a profit of about 7.2 million euros. By contrast, CFR Cluj and Nelu Varga reported, in the same year, losses of the same value!
It is important to note that, according to the club's financial documents, Mihai Rotaru has borrowed Craiova for 13 million euros in the last 14 years – an amount he hopes to recover at some point.
|
2024 |
-3,400,000 euros |
|
2023 |
-5,900,000 |
|
2022 |
-5,100,000 |
|
2021 |
-1.600,000 |
|
2020 |
11.846.180 |
|
2019 |
5.995.971 |
|
2018 |
7.174.120 |
CFR Cluj, financially chaos over the last 7 years!
From Craiova University, which closes the seven years in addition, we reach CFR Cluj, where Nelu Varga has no reason to be happy.
Even though the “railways” dominated the Romanian football and won the title after the title, money was lost!
In fact, 2024 is for the first time that CFR Cluj finishes the year on Plus, after four years of significant losses – more precisely, 22.2 million euros!
The largest chaos was in 2021, when the Gruia band related to the Ministry of Finance losses of 8.8 million euros.
In addition, from 2018 to 2023, the team sponsored by Nelu Varga was only once. It happened in 2019, when the accounting figures indicated a profit of 1.1 million euros.
Calculating the last seven years, CFR is extremely financially bad: total losses of 27.7 million euros!
|
2024 |
630,000 euros |
|
2023 |
-5,000,000 |
|
2022 |
-3,500,000 |
|
2021 |
-8,800,000 |
|
2020 |
-4,900,000 |
|
2019 |
1.100,000 |
|
2018 |
-7.200,000 |
Conclusions for financial statements of the last 7 years submitted to the Ministry of Finance
- Fcsb He ended the fiscal year 2024 with a profit of 3.5 million euros. This is after, in 2023, he recorded the biggest losses of the last seven years: 7.4 million euros.
- RAPID It has never been on profit from 2019 until now! The club sponsored at this time by Dan Șucu reported losses in 2024, of almost 4 million euros.
- Dinamo It is insolvency and does not do it for financially. If in 2023 it was plus 1.8 million euros, fiscal year 2024 ended with a huge loss of 4 million euros.
- CFR Cluj He sold important players and reduced the salaries of the stars, thus managing to declare a profit of 630,000 euros in 2024. However, the situation of the club in Gruia remains alarming, with the biggest losses cumulated among the play-off teams.
- U Cluj It is subscribed to the public funds from the City Hall and the Cluj-Napoca County Council, thus managing to end 2024 on Plus, with just over one million euros. In 2023, he reported a more modest profit, of 178,000 euros.
- U Craiova It is the team that, between 2018 and 2020, accumulated the highest amounts in the club accounts. However, from 2021, the financial decline began in Banie. In 2024, the losses were lower by 2.5 million euros than 2023, but they remain significant.
What does the financial situation of the six clubs look like in the period 2018-2024

What does the financial situation of the six clubs look like in the period 2018-2024
|
CFR Cluj |
-27,670,000 euros |
|
Fcsb |
-15.360,000 |
|
RAPID |
-14.150,000 |
|
Dinamo |
-9.968,000 |
|
U Cluj |
674,000 |
|
U Craiova |
9.016.271 |




