Article by Alin Buzărin – Published Tuesday, January 27, 2026, 3:12 p.m. / Updated Tuesday, January 27, 2026, 3:12 p.m.
What is happening? A commitment with the Security in the “obsessive decade” or a huge career in football?
It was revealed that for eight years, from 1955 to 1963, Ștefan Kovacs, at that time only a former footballer, but not a top player (like his brother Nicolae, participating in three editions of the WC), then a coach on the rise, but provincial, at Dermata, CFR and “U”, all from Cluj, he signed informative notes at the Securitate under the conspiratorial name of Vasile Munteanu.
Let's analyze things
From the start, collegial appreciation for the journalistic work of Justin Gafiuc, one of the most important investigative journalists in the entire Romanian press today, not only in the sports one.
It's not easy to find yellowed papers from six or seven decades ago, and they refer to a huge name like Kovacs. And, along with the appreciation, the request to Justin and colleagues from Gazeta that this opinion of mine is not seen as an “anti-editorial” text, because that is not what the front lines want. But just to analyze how much the revelation from the statue of Ștefan Kovacs matters.
For fear of the dungeon?
Yes, it is clear from the documents that the future coach is an informant. This is indubitable. It happened in the fifties, when thousands of Romanians ended up in political prisons, for many years of prison, and some of them never got out of there alive. It was the “obsessive decade”, when you could jump to wonder what. Kovacs did not end up in prison, but not because that commitment would have protected him, because people who had served the Securitate also ended up in prisons and at the Canal.
Let's judge as then, not as now!
Things, whether it's a celebrity like Kovacs or an anonymous citizen who signed up with security, must be judged like 1955, not like 2026! The present puts the stigma of betraying one's neighbor on what was then seen as an inevitable thing. Of course, on those pledges it is written that they were signed willingly, but many times the cold barrel of a revolver could sit next to the signatory's temple.
Wasn't it good?
Gerrie Kleton, Ruud Krol and Stefan Kovacs (from left to right) on the Ajax bench in October 1972 / Photo: Imago
From the file investigated by Justin, it appears that after 1963, when Kovacs moved professionally from Cluj to Bucharest, his quality as an informant ceased. If his services were still needed, wouldn't the long arm of “Secu” have also reached the Capital? It was probably also abandoned because “Vasile Munteanu”, during the eight years he “served the Fatherland” in Cluj, did not turn on his colleagues, the players, there is no document of his denunciations, but only the characterizations from his bosses, the Cluj security guards.
Are the trophies “Vasile Munteanu's?”
Probably when he was taken from Steaua de Ajax (the story of his surprising appointment there was written and told) his engagement with the Romanian Security was either not known in Holland, or simply no one there was interested. What did President Van Praag have to do with the written gossip from the Rakoczi district of Cluj? It only mattered that the Romanian Kovacs continued the work of Rinus Michels, who had already won a Champions Cup. Kovacs knew how to do this and won two more CCEs. He, the coach, not “the element of hope Munteanu Vasile”!
Where didn't the detergent go…
In post-revolutionary Romania, many Security files of high-value people, who collaborated casually and insignificantly, were revealed. Venerable politicians such as Constantin Bălăceanu Stolnici, Mircea Ionescu Quintus, Alexandru Paleologu, actors Ion Besoiu or Dan Puric, poet Ștefan Augustin Dioinaș, journalist Emanuel Valeriu and many others were revealed clearly, with subject and predicate. Others, important persons, had their files washed with the most effective detergent.
Stigma over time? Not! Just an information!
Stefan Kovacs is the last name revealed. How much does it matter? Many Romanians collaborated with Securitatea, but only one of them won two Champions Cups in a row. More than 30 have passed since the death of Kovacs (1920-1995), more than half a century since his great performances and more than seven decades since the coach's impeccable handwriting (follow the facsimiles) agreed to become Munteanu Vasile. Forgive him, Lord, and rest in peace!
