Spouses Monica and Tiberiu Iacob-Ridzi, interventions and pressure to favor their daughter in junior tennis tournaments
Monica Iacob-Ridzi, the former Minister of Sports, and her husband Tiberiu Iacob-Ridzi, the mayor of Petroșani, put pressure on the local level for their 12-year-old daughter, Maria Sara, to receive advantages at several tennis tournaments, GSP reports.
The Ridzis' daughter is registered at CSM Jiul Petroșani, a club supported by the town hall run by her father.
Mayor Tiberiu Iacob-Ridzi, currently a social democrat, at one point insisted that his daughter's opponent be left without a doubles partner, otherwise threatening that “she has nothing to do at the stadium”.
The mayor of Petroșani called Gabriel Băluș, the coach who guides all the tennis players in the area, to put pressure on a local player to remain without a partner, according to a recording published by GSP. The coach admitted to the sports publication intervened.
Băluș, until recently in the alderman's entourage, said that Tiberiu Iacob-Ridzi also put pressure on the removal of some players from the group he was training.
“They told me that they would increase my salary if I fired the sportswomen, that they would make me 5,000 lei, that they would defend me from the press if something was written, etc. I told Monica that I needed 2-3 days to think. Too much stress had accumulated, the mental pressure was too high,” Băluș said.
And his brother, Nicolae Codruț Băluș, also a tennis instructor, was removed. Other coaches also suffered, added Gabriel Băluș.
Tables from junior tournaments, arranged
According to the cited source, Monica Iacob-Ridzi personally arranged the rigging of the tables at the junior tournaments, where the daughter of the former minister convicted for acts of corruption participates, so that she would have an advantage over her.
Several people, such as coaches, parents, people directly involved in the competitions, described the same mechanism: pressure from the Ridzi family before drawing up the painting.
Although the draw for the main draw must be made in public and with the participation of at least 2 players from different clubs, as stipulated by the rules of the Romanian Tennis Federation, in Petroșani there is no transparency and only a final document is made, displayed later.
After several complaints, the FRT introduced an electronic lottery system.
Interventions to “slam” a final
Gabriel Băluș claimed for GSP that in November 2024, Monica Iacob-Ridzi called him to persuade the father of a girl who had reached the last act of the CSM Jiul Petroșani Cup to “slam” the final in favor of his daughter.
Băluș says that he complied and asked this to the father of the player who was going to compete in the final with the girl from the Iacob-Ridzi cup.
The finalist's father categorically refused and the national champion, who retired from tennis and returned to the court later, defeated Maria Sara with a drastic score, score 6-0, 6-3. Despite all the interventions made by the parents, the girl had a modest path on the main tables of the competitions.
GSP notes that although the abuses were reported, the president of the Romanian Tennis Federation, George Cosac, said he had no information on this.
The Iacob-Ridzi family avoided offering a point of view, according to GSP. The former minister, after claiming that he had no signal, blocked the phone number, while Tiberiu Iacob-Ridzi did not answer any calls.
