There are rare moments when a football player generates national emotion not following a goal, but through a statement made at the end of a championship match.
Alex Chipciu, 35 years old, who has worn the national team jersey 46 times, winning 13 trophies with three clubs – FCSB, Anderlecht Brussels, and CFR Cluj – has caused a seismic shift in domestic football and a wave of emotion throughout the country.
Since 2022, Chipciu, an efficient midfielder, has moved to Universitatea Cluj, coached by Ioan Ovidiu Sabău, a golden generation legend.
The latter took over the team at the beginning of January 2023 from the 14th position out of 16, saved it from relegation, and in the current season has been mostly at the top of the standings.
The domination of the championship by a "small team," funded, however, by the city hall of a wealthy city, has intensified the competition in which clubs that have dominated the championship in recent years are fighting for the title.
The competition has sparked discussions about refereeing decisions, with several coaches and players accusing them of deliberate errors and manipulation of VAR (Video Assistant Referee).
After the match held on Wednesday, February 5, in Craiova, between the local University and U Cluj, the club where Chipciu plays, Sabău's players were cursed by Sorin Cârțu, honorary president of U Craiova, and also felt unjustly treated by the referees, according to many involved in the football field.
At the end of the match, lost by U Cluj with 1-0, Alexandru Chipciu, contrary to the tradition of players saying banalities at press conferences and sideline interviews, launches into a speech criticizing the behavior of football people in our country, corruption, and the crisis of values perpetuating violence, stupidity, and the negative attitude of those around the sporting phenomenon.
Football, a Strange Demon
"…we keep silent and remain silent until the end of our lives, but I don't want to stay silent and honestly, if I have something to lose, I don't even care. I just want to keep playing football for as long as I enjoy it, and I'll probably end up with all this charade, because the owners are the same. They made money and think they know everything. Culture is zero…", Alexandru Chipciu burst out in the post-match interview for Prima Sport 1.
The player's outburst once again shows, if there was any need, how important democracy and freedom are.
Especially in these days when Romania is going through the darkest period in the last decade, pushed once again to the edge of Europe, from where you least expect it, a "hero" appears and holds up a mirror to society. No one is too pleased with the reflected image.
Football is a strange demon. It rules the minds and souls of billions of people, swiftly carrying them through the darkness of despair without any warning to then lift them to the highest peaks of ecstasy in just a few seconds.
Those who support a team, go to the stadium, or watch games on TV know what it's all about.
Through such a hallucinatory journey, carried to the edge of rationality, drowned in an ocean of emotions, even the players go. They score a goal, become the guardian angels of hundreds of thousands of people who fall asleep with them in mind, dizzy with happiness and alcohol, replaying in their minds the move that wrote glory. The goal! A fragile glory, always in danger of being shattered in the next weekend, in the next game of defeat.
The Surprise that a Mentally Disabled Person Was Voted
Rarely, from the labyrinth of passion, ecstasy, anger, despair, effort, training, injuries, contracts, money, bankruptcies emerges a character from a story who takes on the task of telling the truth, the truth beyond football.
Until Chipciu's speech, we didn't even suspect that players have the power to rise above the stadium and see the world as a whole. We believed them crushed by the hot air from the unextinguished volcano of the stands, by the pressure, passion, and fight for a goal, points, victory, so Chipciu's words were a shock.
It's no coincidence that they went viral, spreading like wildfire, shocking the football world that couldn't even call the firefighters.
"If we believe in determinism… it wouldn't exist, … wouldn't look in the mirror, would break that mirror. That's our education. And then… we're surprised that we voted for a mentally disabled person? Two million people… the effects of causes… from the past… and that's how we were… led…, damn how long we were in communism, by an uneducated lunatic. We are the effects of what happened before…," Alex Chipciu added in front of the cameras, his face moist with sweat.
Since Hagi's outburst on June 3, 1998, when he clashed with the national team supporters, telling them they have too high expectations compared to the material state of Romanian football, there hasn't been a player who has risen up and expressed himself with such force.
It is noteworthy that in Hagi's case, it was an attempt to bring people back down to earth, while in Chipciu's case, we have a critique of behavior and corruption in the domestic competition, as well as a criticism of society, the fact that in the absence of education, we have lagged behind, still being affected by the totalitarian regimes of the second half of the last century.
Explaining the Effects of the World
The fact that his message has triggered a chain of reactions, from Gigi Becali to Sorin Cârțu, who apologized for cursing the players, from tens of thousands of shares on social networks, debates on sports shows, and articles in the press, all show that Alex Chipciu's message hit the mark.
It is for the first time in a long time that an important voice in football announces that many figures in this industry promote imbecility, vulgarity, verbal violence, and thuggery, and the situation created has a negative impact on society.
Aside from a small earthquake in the football world, Chipciu's outburst probably won't have immediate effects. Everyone will return to league matches, the fight for the title, or avoiding relegation, but the speech will not be forgotten, just as Hagi's outburst has not been forgotten, confirmed by the passage of time.
Chipciu's outburst will remain a reference point that people will return to from time to time to explain a part of the "effects," as the player called them, of the world we live in. Thank you, Alex Chipciu!