News Wrap

Since my last report, a bunch of things have happened.

Firstly, four more players have joined the team: Winston Parks (Alajuelense), Dorin Goga (Universitatea Cluj), Eder Bonfim (Uniao Leiria) and Kenan Cejvanovic (Sloboda Tuzla).

Secondly, the white-violets are already in Austria, where they've played two friendlies. After the 2:1 win in Timisoara agains Drobeta Turnu Severin (Romania, 2nd League) - goals by Magera and Arman Karamyan - Poli lost their first match at Kaprun against MFK Kosice 0:1 and drew against Lankaran 1:1 - Da Costa scored from a free-kick. Their third "Austrian" friendly will take place today, against Metalurg Zaporoje.

Thirdly and lastly, following the need to comply with the abhorrent decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sports - which decided, based on fraudulent documents (according to Mr. Marian Iancu), that a former owner of the club holds the rights to the name and colours of Politehnica Timisoara - the team was forced to change its name to FC Timisoara and its colours to purple - white - black. However, as far as anyone from around here is concerned, the CAS were induced to take this course of action following severe irregularities at the Romanian Football Federation and there is no question as to which team they support - and that is Politehnica Timisoara, whichever name it may have in the official papers.
According to Mr. Iancu, this is only a temporary solution in order to avoid any possible sanctions, before attacking the decision with new evidence.