Football carries a certain emotional, political and economic weight, outside its sportive and competition dimension. When we go outside the professional area, there are a lot of amateur teams that play only for the sake of fun, health, personal glory, and also for preserving and promoting their cultures and traditions, sideways from the game.
FC Romania Bruxelles is a beautiful team that understands the broader dimension of football. Its President and Coach, Mr. Dan Fodor, is a former professional player now in the building industry in Brussels, far away from his native Bosanci village, in North Romania.
His path into the western country wasn’t always smooth, yet he always found resources to dedicate to his dream and passion. In this respect he has patroned FC Romania Bruxelles for 11 years, won championships and other competitions in the amateur leagues in Belgium, always proudly representing Romanian football.
The Romanian Diaspora Cup is one of his inventions, as an effort to promote football around the Romanian communities within the diaspora, gather Romanian nationals around their traditions on weekends, with Romanian made beverages and traditional food straight after the games.
The Romanian Diaspora Cup, first edition, this year envisages a long lasting tradition for the growing number of Romanian teams in the EU and overseas. In this respect Dan Fodor was creative and designed a cup encompassing Romanian art, symbols and motives carved in stone, metal and covered in cloth. The well recognizable Brancusi’s Infinity Column, Vlad Dracula Tepes’ goblet, Christian crosses, the shape of Romanian map and other ancient national symbols were sculptured by academics and professions into this unique cup, representing the quittances of the Romanian culture, an acequia, trying to catch a ball as an allusion to the Roman history this county has and its competitive spirit.
Dan Fodor declared : “ Football is not only a sport, football is a culture. For me is an honor to be able to promote my country, my traditions and my values in a place like Brussels. Mapping out and promoting such events in the Romanian diaspora, provides a sense of integration and Romania’s greater contributions locally as well as globally”
EU Today welcomes this beautiful initiative and we expect to see high quality games, together with Romanian, Belgium and British supporters, in the context in the larger context of what football can bring: joy, emotions and cumulativeness.
The competition takes place at Centre Sportif de Neder , Petit Chemin Vert, 99, Bruxelles. 11 June, starting early in the morning.
