The outspoken Romanian millionaire owner of Romania’s prestigious Steaua Bucharest (FCSB) football club, Gigi Becali, who only a month ago threatened to “smack (Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor) Orbán in the head,” has now declared Hungarians are his brethren after a Hungarian referee saved his team with a last-minute penalty.
Becali’s team made it to the group stage of the Conference League after a 3-1 victory at the home of the Norwegian Viking in the second leg.
In the match in Bucharest, the Norwegians won 2-1. In last night’s match, FCSB led 2-1 until the 93rd minute, and when everyone was preparing for extra time, the Hungarian referee Tamás Bognár awarded a penalty shot to FCSB, with which Radunovic then scored, allowing the team to advance.
Apparently, the referee’s call was all Gigi needed to make peace with the Hungarians.
“Since yesterday, the Hungarians are my friends, my brothers! No one would have awarded that penalty!” the former shepherd turned tycoon cheered on the Pro Arena show on Romanian commercial television.
As we reported last month, irked by the recent success of Sepsi, which is owned and mostly staffed by ethnic Hungarians, Gigi Becali vowed to hit back with significant investment in his own club, and bizarrely attacked Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in a recent press conference.
“If Orbán dares to do something, I will hit him in the head. Smack. Down with Sepsi,” Becali said in an interview recently published on YouTube.
