Article by Romeo Ene – Published on Saturday, 04 April 2026, 07:34 / Updated on Saturday, 04 April 2026 07:35
Gigi Becali (67 years old), the owner of the FCSBwent live on TV right after the failure of his team on the field of FC Botoșaniscore 2-3, in stage 3 of the Superleague play-out. Present in the studio, Mihai Pintilii (41 years old), the former “second” of the red-blues, was targeted by an attack by the financier.
He referred to the fact that the team does not have a valuable midfielder, after the departure of Adrian Șut, and Mihai Stoica, Elias Charalambous and Mihai Pintilii failed to identify a suitable replacement.
Gigi claims that he was willing to pay two million euros for a valuable footballer, but the former coaches proposed Ofri Arad (27 years old), who played too little to impress him.
Becali challenged him live on TV on Pintilii: “Look, you spend 17 hours on the computer!”
The financier directly told Pintilii what to do to be a “modern coach”:
“I'll tell you my thoughts, everything that happened. MM had to change things, or even Pintilii, Charalambous, when I said: “take a central midfielder, we don't have it”. Baba makes mistakes, he's crazy, Lixandru doesn't know football anymore.
Pintilii, who is there with you, had to do it (no – in the studio)to look, to research, if he wants to be a modern coach, «work, look, stay 17 hours on the computer! See 200 players”: “Well, Gigi, look at the midfielder”, because I asked for a midfielder, they didn't bring him!
I asked for two midfielders, they didn't bring them! Well, if you didn't bring a midfielder when I said, I would have given two million, I said “bring”, because I don't know how. I told them to bring players, I am no longer able to bring players, that we need technology and everything is digitized and I don't like digitization.
As such, “get busy!” They didn't bring, they brought Arad, I don't know, because I didn't see him. If I say I give two million for a midfielder and they bring Arad, whom I haven't seen yet, what will Rădoi do?
He can't change, he has nothing to do, he doesn't have a central midfielder,” Gigi Becali said on the “Fotbal Show” show from Prima Sport.
The moment when Mihai Pintilii is scolded live on TV by Gigi Becali and has no reply // PHOTO: Prima Sport capture
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Ofri Arad has only played 3 matches for FCSB, being unavailable at the moment due to an injury.
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He is quoted by the specialized website Transfermarkt at 1.2 million euros.
Mihai Pintilii's reply, after the FCSB financier hung up the phone!
The former “second” from FCSB had no reaction when Becali scolded him live. He waited for the financier to finish his intervention to answer him:
“We looked at the players, but the decision remains with MM, with Gigi Becali, who has the money. We looked at the players. And in the training camp in Turkey, we only sat on the computers.
We had a list every night of 7-8 players. We saw around 60 players, we were also looking for midfielders, forwards and defenders.
Nobody caught our attention in particular, we stopped at Ofri Arad, but I don't know if Gigi Becali likes it. Ofri Arad does not have the aggressiveness that Gigi Becali wants, that is, as Bourceanu had”, Pintilii replied.
Ranking up to date from the play-out
