Article by Sergiu Alexandru – Published Thursday, April 30, 2026, 2:01 p.m. / Updated Thursday, April 30, 2026, 2:20 p.m.
Bucharest City Hall debated today the draft budget for 2026, and the situation at CSM Bucharest was also discussed.
- CSM Bucharest returned to the Final Four of the Champions League after an 8-year break. The formation prepared by Bojana Popovic will face Metz in the semi-finals.
- According to the schedule published by the EHF, the match will take place on June 6, from 16:00. The program in the MVM Dome in Budapest will end at 19:00, with Gyor – Brest.
Mayor Ciprian Ciucu announced in today's meeting that the budget of the Municipal Sports Club will be 60 million lei (11.6 million euros). According to him, approximately 10-15 million lei are intended for the payment of older debts.
The Mayor of the Capital revealed that PMB would like to build a gym for CSM Bucharest, and then declared that the people of Bucharest and the General Council of the Municipality of Bucharest will have to decide the fate of the club.
In other words, it will be decided if CSM will continue to be a performance club, with big budgets and foreign players, or if it will be a club that promotes children and juniors.
Mayor Ciprian Ciucu announces: “CSM Bucharest has a budget of 60 million lei. But we have to decide what its mission is”
“CSM, if I'm not mistaken, will have a budget of around 60 million euros. A part, somewhere around 10-15 million, are debts from the past. That's how I got it, with debts. Overall, the budget is smaller.
And I did something else. We put a budget line to build a gym, from that, on a hall model. The project is being worked on. CSM has very high expenses with renting from private individuals.
My problem with the CSM is different. Maybe we will have a debate in Bucharest, with the general councilors and the people of Bucharest, in which we define what we do with the CSM. I don't know what CSM is. Is it a performance club like Steaua, Rapid or Dinamo? Or is it a grassroots sports club? I looked at the women's handball team, which has results and deserves congratulations. But it largely consists of foreign players.
Why do the people of Bucharest pay for foreign players? Why do they give millions? Do they support handball from their countries or handball from Romania? I still don't have an answer.
If you want performance, you have to give money. I asked the president to balance the situation and to have more contracts with players from the country, to help Romanian handball. I have not defined the CSM mission.
Do we want it to be a performance club and do we commit to bigger budgets for team sports? Do we want to play at European level? Then let's define it as such, but in the state it is more difficult. Or we make several sections and focus on attracting children to grassroots sports. We have to decide together what to do with the CSM.
CSM Bucharest, qualification for the Final Four of the Champions League / PHOTO: Cristi Preda (GSP.ro)
We were proud of Cristina Neagu, right? It's also normal. But he had a salary… It's normal to be like that. If you want performance, you have to reward the athlete. We will have a debate at the level of Bucharest. What do we want with the CSM? Do we want to take it to mass sport and raise children or do we take it to performance and pay outside players big salaries?
I still don't have a vision. And I don't want it to be my vision. I want it to be the vision of the city. We have to decide together. Look, CSM Bucharest is in the Final Four in handball. It's very cool! Are we proud? we are But it costs us”, said the mayor Ciprian Ciucu in a press conference.
- In 2025, the initial budget of the CSM was 58,820,000 lei, the equivalent of 11.76 million euros at the time. However, following an amendment requesting a supplement, the final amount allocated to the club reached approximately 13 million euros – more precisely, 12,940,000 euros.
