Mircea Sandu, age 73, who served as the president of the Romanian Football Federation (FRF) from 1990 to 2014, has been acquitted in a case where prosecutors accused him of money laundering and embezzlement pertaining to the construction of the National Football Center in Buftea, completed in 2011 by the FRF.
In 2017, three years after concluding his last term leading Romanian football, Sandu faced charges from DIICOT. The allegations included that he, along with his son-in-law Ziv-Asher Tetelman, father-in-law Puiu Tetelman, and Bogdan-Gabriel Petculescu, allegedly formed an organized crime group aimed at misappropriating €740,000 from a contract for the center’s construction.
According to the DIICOT’s 2017 statement, to achieve their criminal objective, a fictitious circuit was established through which successive contracts were made between various companies controlled by the group members, allowing funds from contracts with the federation to be transferred. Some of these amounts later returned to group members disguised as “loan repayments,” “dividends,” and similar terms.
Under the leadership of Răzvan Burleanu, the FRF became a civil party in the case, aiming to recover the financial losses. Burleanu stated in 2017, “We will do everything in our power to recover the money that is part of the damages owed to football.”
Decision in Buftea Case: Sandu Acquitted with Estimated Damages of €550,000
Three years later, in 2020, three out of the four suspects, excluding Puiu Tetelman, were sent to trial. Meanwhile, the estimated damages were recalculated to 2,324,377.76 lei, equivalent to €548,473.95 based on the exchange rate at the time of the alleged offenses.
After numerous delays and years of waiting, the first-instance ruling came on August 28, 2026. The First Penal Section of the Bucharest Tribunal acquitted the three defendants and dismissed the civil action brought by the FRF as unfounded.
They were acquitted based on Article 16, paragraph 1, letter a) of the Criminal Procedure Code, which states that “the act does not exist.” Thus, the judges determined that the acts claimed by the prosecutors, including money laundering and embezzlement within an organized crime group, did not occur.
Additionally, the judges ordered the release of all properties seized by DIICOT. In Sandu’s case, this included a 181.38 square meter urban plot and a villa exceeding 400 square meters of usable area (206.84 square meters on the ground floor plus 200.02 square meters in the attic).
This decision is not yet final and can be appealed within ten days of communication.
