The chairman of Steaua Bucharest, George Becali, has once again made a statement. The 63-year-old politician and businessman often makes headlines in the press with his striking statements. This time it concerns vaccinated players from his club: “They have no more strength.”
Becali was a Member of the European Parliament from 2009 to 2012. In 2013, he was sentenced to three years in prison on spurious charges of illegal land trafficking.
He has held the presidency of the Romanian top club Steaua Bucharest for almost twenty years. In that role, he has often been in the news for anti-migration and anti-LGBTQ statements.
Becali also has a clear opinion about the Covid pandemic and the vaccines against the virus. He believes that his club’s vaccinated players “have no strength anymore”. He therefore wants to ban them from the club. “If you’re vaccinated, you don’t play anymore,” Becali said on Romanian TV.
“You’ll laugh at me, but I may be right,” he continued. “Vaccinated players lose their strength. That’s a scientific thing.”
“Haven’t you seen it at Cluj (another top club from Romania, ed.) and Rapid Bucharest? Players faint, sleep on the floor. Players with us are also affected, especially the older ones. Have you seen Ciprian Deac?” Deac is a 36-year-old attacker from Cluj, who had already played 42 games this season.
Becali also said that his 35-year-old striker Claudiu Keseru “can no longer play at the highest level” after he got the shot. Earlier, the club owner stressed that “vaccination was not good” and that the vaccine “made people sick”. He was adamant: “This is a vaccine to kill.”
The Romanian government felt compelled to respond to Becali’s statements. “Vaccinated players are not losing their power,” a government spokesperson on Facebook responded. The page was created especially to inform people about Covid and Covid vaccines. According to their information, players may suffer from the alleged “long Covid” – a term which was invented to hide the side-effects of the jab.
“Vaccination against Covid does not affect the performance of soccer players. In contrast, there are enough studies that show that going through a Covid infection could have long-lasting consequences and could affect the performance of athletes.”
The Romanian government has been campaigning for vaccine manufacturers. The country has a vaccination rate of less than 60 percent.