“The best format for the Super League is this! And why do I say that?”

The discussion about the format of the Super League has become, once again, one of the most sensitive topics in Romanian football, amid debates related to the number of teams and the play-off and play-out structure.

While LPF president Gino Iorgulescu recently suggested that a 12-team championship could represent a more competitive option in the long term, the League's official position remains firmly in favor of the current format.

Justin Stefan: “The current competitive format is the best!”

– Mr. Ștefan, I would like to talk about this format of the championship. Gino Iorgulescu, in my opinion, took a risk when he said that it would be good to have 12 teams in the first league.
– At the moment, and I think this is one of the important achievements that the League has had in the mandates that have been up to this moment. There are a few accomplishments and I'll point them out and then come back to your question.

– Please.
– Through the TV rights contract, a stability of the clubs was ensured and somehow maintained in a correct area compared to what is happening on the European market.

– Then why do some curse the contract?
– Well, there will always be some who will curse the contract. We'll never please everyone, but most don't swear by the contract. We are talking about two or three exceptions that I think, after the discussions I had personally with them, agreed with our position.

– Good, go on.
– There was no interference in terms of commissions, arbitration, transfers, the election of club presidents. There were rumors that this had happened before. Then, the competitive format changed. The current competitive format is the best and why do I say that?

“The current system in the Super League ensures the integrity of the competition”

– That's right.
– Because all the clubs in the Super League today approve him, the Romanian Football Federation approves him, the televisions approve him and the sponsors approve him. And do you know why they approve of it? Because he ensures the integrity of the competition. This is the most important element of this current system. The integrity of the competition for us, for the League, is an economic asset. If you don't have integrity, fans, sponsors don't come.

– It doesn't get too crowded either.
– It is not crowding, but if we look at the audiences of the last years… From the last three-four years, they have grown year by year.

– It's true, but the world is progressing, it doesn't stand still in any field.
– That's why we have to return to an honest mechanism and solutions. But, but what this competition mechanism does in the current format: it discourages behind-the-scenes games. Because once you go to the play-offs and play-outs and split the points, nobody is interested in getting to the relegation zone or the failure zone.

– Here I have a discussion: others do not divide the points by two.
– I know the position of many…

“We protest when it doesn't suit us and when it suits us we don't say anything”

– According to Dan Petrescu, there are points won on the field.
– Yes, but Dan Petrescu and all those who contested this division were sometimes in a position to benefit from this division.

– It's something else!
– Well, let's decide! We protest when it doesn't suit us and when it suits us we don't say anything. This division increases the competitiveness between the clubs, because if we look at the last seasons, until the last stage there was almost a fight for the title, a fight for relegation. That keeps the interest and the audience. You want to talk about an ideal system, but an ideal system in a 100% perfected Romanian football.

– 12 teams are too few.
– Now you should ask him… Probably, at the current stage of development of Romanian football, he believes that there cannot be more than 12 teams that can perform.

– On the plus side, so to speak.
– Speaking of the relationship with Gino Iorgulescu, this is a positive thing about the relationship and about him because he doesn't force you to agree with him. I didn't share that point of view and I think that for years to come this 16-team play-off, play-out and split points format is the happiest format.

“Gino sees extraordinary play, it's more like artificial intelligence”

– I understood Gino Iorgulescu and I agreed with him when he claimed that the play-off without FCSB no longer has the same charm.
– It was misunderstood there. The moment he made that statement was perhaps not the best chosen, but somehow he did not take the perspective to the end, because he said: “because FCSB is not there, the other clubs will lose”. But don't explain how they will lose in terms of audience, tickets and so on.

Gino Iorgulescu, head of the LPF

– As a financial prescription.
– In the end, do you know what the positive thing is? That it proves to us that in the Professional Football League there is freedom of expression and thought. And we must take this as a positive example, even if sometimes people criticize or when such a statement appears…

– He has the right to a point of view, even if the body he leads does not support the point of view.
– Let me tell you one more thing, and here I feel sorry for him. If you sit next to him and watch a football game, he has a perspective that is more like artificial intelligence than human intelligence. That is, he sees the extraordinary game and unfortunately for him no one consults him anymore.

– Is there an intention to change the system according to the Greek method, with 4 teams, another 4 plus 6 in the play-out?
– No! I don't think it's possible to do something like that because today the 16 clubs agree to the current system. He was understood and became a habit including for the supporters. I don't see why we would try to intervene somewhere where things are going well.

“It's a fair criticism of this system, but that's how it worked”

– There's something else that's wrong. The team in 3rd or 4th place play a playoff with the one in 7th place, but the 5th and 6th places, which are better than the 7-8 ones in the play-offs, do not play anything.
– It's certainly a fair criticism of this system, but that's how it worked. Because at the time when the system was analyzed, it was considered that this variant would generate the largest audience and the largest commercial revenues for the Super League clubs.

– How you can't make rankings in the Cup with teams that don't play each other.
– Do you know what the problem is with the system? From my perspective, the biggest problem of the system is that in the play-off zone you have 40 matches in a competitive season, you also have the matches from the European cups… And I don't know if Romania's current football team is ready to play so many matches.

– That's why something should be changed.
– The Greek variant would indeed reduce the number of matches a bit. That would be the benefit of the Greek version, but not today. At the same time you have a problem with media rights holders, who want to have as many matches as possible, not as few as possible.