What Răzvan Burleanu answered when he was asked why he did not resign after Romania's failure to qualify for the World Championship
During the meeting, Burleanu was asked if he thought about resigning, following Romania's failure to the World Championship in 2026, after the national team lost the decisive match in the semi-finals of the pool against Turkey, score 1-0.
Răzvan Burleanu, about a possible resignation from FRF: “FRF, at the moment, is similar to a club made up of 38 entities”
The FRF president spoke about the responsibility he has at the head of the Federation, but also about the differences with other examples in international football, such as the president of the Italian Federation, who chose to leave after the “Squadre Azzurra” missed the qualification for the World Cup.
Burleanu defended himself by arguing that he cannot be considered fully responsible for a sporting performance that he cannot influence on his own.
“If we refer to the responsibility of the president of the FRF, you certainly have a responsibility, given that you are in charge of the Romanian Football Federation. However, I cannot consider the president of a sports federation to be responsible for a sports performance that you cannot influence on your own. Think of the FRF at the moment as being like a club made up of 38 professional entities from League 1 and League 2, to which we add about 100 entities from League 3. We help train players, recruit them, train coaches at first team level and so on.”
How Romania missed qualifying for the World Championship
Romania's national team missed out on qualifying for the 2026 World Cup after losing the decisive match against Turkey. The only goal of the game, scored by the Turks, ended the hopes of the “tricolors” to return to a final world tournament after a gap of 28 years.
After missing out on qualifying for the World Championship following the defeat to Turkey, 0-1, Romania played a friendly match against Slovakia on March 31, 2026, score 0-2.
