{"id":1151,"date":"2026-08-23T13:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T13:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scorfinal.ro\/blog\/?p=1151"},"modified":"2026-08-23T13:04:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T13:04:35","slug":"romanian-league-is-selling-for-less-and-less-its-top-players-are-now-worth-e3-4-million-while-neighbouring-leagues-complete-deals-worth-over-e20-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scorfinal.ro\/blog\/2026\/08\/23\/romanian-league-is-selling-for-less-and-less-its-top-players-are-now-worth-e3-4-million-while-neighbouring-leagues-complete-deals-worth-over-e20-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Romanian league is selling for less and less. Its top players are now worth \u20ac3\u20134 million, while neighbouring leagues complete deals worth over \u20ac20 million"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2020 and 2021, Superliga clubs were completing transfers worth \u20ac8 million and \u20ac11 million. In the following years, the ceiling dropped to around \u20ac5\u20136 million, while this summer the league\u2019s top players are being sold or negotiated for fees of around \u20ac3\u20134 million. Over the past year, however, clubs from the Czech Republic, Croatia, Serbia and Hungary have sold players for between \u20ac12 million and \u20ac22 million.<\/strong><\/p>\n

U Cluj sold Andrei Coubi\u0219 to Lincoln City for \u20ac3 million. It is the biggest fee in the Cluj club\u2019s history, after the defender had been signed from Sampdoria for just \u20ac125,000.<\/p>\n

Universitatea Craiova accepted a \u20ac2.1 million offer from Chicago Fire for Anzor Mekvabishvili, and the Georgian agreed to the move.<\/p>\n

The other two names are Jovo Luki\u0107 and \u0218tefan Baiaram, the two teams\u2019 standout players. U Cluj rejected \u20ac2 million for the Superliga top scorer and want \u20ac3 million. Craiova are asking \u20ac5 million for Baiaram, but the most important offer so far, from Anderlecht, was worth \u20ac4 million.<\/p>\n

These are four players from last season\u2019s champions and runners-up. One was sold for \u20ac3 million, another for \u20ac2.1 million, while the offers for the two biggest names at the clubs have not gone beyond \u20ac4 million. For now, this is the market for the Superliga\u2019s top players.<\/p>\n

How the ceiling fell from \u20ac11 million<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The difference compared with the start of the decade is considerable. In 2020, Craiova sold Valentin Mih\u0103il\u0103 to Parma for \u20ac8.5 million. In January 2021, FCSB received \u20ac11 million for Dennis Man. A few months later, Alexandru Cic\u00e2ld\u0103u joined Galatasaray for \u20ac6.5 million.<\/p>\n

Since 2021, no Superliga club has completed a sale worth more than \u20ac7 million. D.C. United paid around \u20ac6 million for Louis Munteanu in 2026, while Rare\u0219 Ilie, Florinel Coman and Albion Rrahmani all left for \u20ac5 million, joining Nice, Al-Gharafa and Sparta Prague respectively.<\/p>\n

Of those players, only Man and Rrahmani really lived up to the fees. Man became an important player for Parma and later moved to PSV, while Rrahmani was sold by Sparta to Venezia for \u20ac7.5 million.<\/p>\n

At the other end of the scale, Rare\u0219 Ilie made only ten appearances for Nice, while Cic\u00e2ld\u0103u lost his place at Galatasaray and eventually returned to Craiova.<\/p>\n

The neighbours have sold for more over the past year<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Looking at the past year, Romania is clearly losing the race against the other leagues in the region. Four of them have completed at least one sale worth more than twice the fees currently being discussed in the Superliga:<\/p>\n

Czech Republic: El Hadji Malick Diouf, Slavia Prague to West Ham \u2013 \u20ac22 million;<\/p>\n

Croatia: Martin Baturina, Dinamo Zagreb to Como \u2013 \u20ac18 million, plus bonuses;<\/p>\n

Serbia: Andrija Maksimovi\u0107, Red Star Belgrade to Leipzig \u2013 \u20ac14.1 million;<\/p>\n

Hungary: Alex T\u00f3th, Ferencv\u00e1ros to Bournemouth \u2013 \u20ac12 million.<\/p>\n

Slovakia also went beyond the level reached by Romania. Slovan Bratislava received \u20ac7.5 million from Middlesbrough for David Strelec.<\/p>\n

Over the same period, the biggest departure from the Superliga was Louis Munteanu. D.C. United paid around \u20ac6 million for the CFR striker.<\/p>\n

\n
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In 2020 and 2021, Superliga clubs were completing transfers worth \u20ac8 million and \u20ac11 million. In the following years, the ceiling dropped to around \u20ac5\u20136…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1144,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[232,1],"tags":[380,379,238,108,233,378],"class_list":["post-1151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english-version","category-uncategorized","tag-compare","tag-neighbours","tag-players","tag-romania","tag-superliga","tag-transfers","entry","double"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scorfinal.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scorfinal.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scorfinal.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scorfinal.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scorfinal.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1151"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/scorfinal.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1153,"href":"https:\/\/scorfinal.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1151\/revisions\/1153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scorfinal.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scorfinal.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scorfinal.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scorfinal.ro\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}