CFR Cluj is sitting on a powder keg » The players have not received any salary this season and there are debts from the previous one as well!
Article by Marius Mărgărit – Published Thursday, October 16, 2025 7:45 p.m. / Updated Thursday, October 16, 2025 7:45 p.m.
If in terms of football CFR Cluj is struggling in the basement of the ranking, the club from Gruia is not doing well at all in terms of administrative and financial terms.
It recently lost its president, Cristi Balaj. The one who had another attempt to leave, immediately after the defeat of Hacken proportions, 2-7. When the coach Dan Petrescu also decided to retire for a while, including for medical reasons.
“Drought” for CFR Cluj players in the 2025-2026 season
Now, however, more financial problems have piled up. Some older, from the previous season, but also some more recent. And by October 15, one of the FRF and UEFA monitoring milestones, the players had numerous arrears to collect.
It's about some game bonuses from the last championship, the bonuses for winning the Romanian Cup and for eliminating the Swiss from Lugano, in the second preliminary round of the Europa League. Plus salaries for three months, July, August and September. Practically, the students of coach Andrea Mandorlini have collected nothing this season.
GSP.ro sources claim that a salary was paid in August, but it was for June, given that the 2025/2026 season started the following month.
Arrears of two million euros
By October 15, all debts resulting from sports activity contracts, as well as those to the state, should have been paid up to date, according to the requirements of the licensing manual. Thus, the owner Ioan Varga would have to pay around two million euros. But until today, before the arrears with Csikszereda, nothing had yet entered the players' accounts.
It is not the first time in recent years that the Transylvanian club faces such situations. It also happened on other occasions that the financier entered a liquidity “wedge” for several months, and then paid large sums to cover the debts.
However, other sources from the world of football claim that “Neluțu Varga had to prove that he had paid those amounts by midnight on October 15. The money probably hasn't appeared in the players' accounts yet. It is known that he pays, even if sometimes there are still delays”.
