Soccer federation chair accused of rigging elections

Pavel Cebanu's opponents accuse him of rigging the elections for the position of president of the Moldovan Soccer Federation (FMF). Those four told a news conference Monday they were ready to testify their accusations before the UEFA, Info-Prim Neo reports. Vasile Vatamanu, one of the competitors, has said that Pavel Cebanu, by organizing open-vote elections, intimidated the members of the congress. “If Cebanu had wanted transparent elections, he should have allowed them to be secret, so that everyone could express his/her vote freely, without being intimidated,” said Vatamanu. “The elections were not monitored, and this is proved by the fact that there were people who had voted five times and nobody banned them to do so,” said Alexandru Guzun, another aspirant to the chairmanship of the FMF. Another opponent, Petru Efros, accused Cebanu of distributing gifts before the congress, thus inviting the delegates to vote for him. Efros has said Pavel Cebanu, during his holding the position of the FMF's for two terms, stole money from the Moldovan football, investing it in luxurious houses. “Money earmarked to train children were stolen and this president used it to build houses of millions of dollars for himself. By participating in the elections we wanted to offer a chance to the Moldovan football to develop, but now I see this is not possible in Moldova. With buha-baha, we're never going to have football in Moldova,” Efros derided a pun previously voiced by Cebanu. “We're certain we're going to win, if new elections are held, since we'll do our best that the fight should be fairer this time,” said Igor Oprea, a contestant. Pavel Cebanu got a third mandate to be the FMF president on February 6, with a landslide majority at the 8th congress of the Federation. 170 delegates voted for Cebanu, while all the other candidates got 15 votes. Alexandru Guzun gained 10 votes, Igor Oprea – 4, Petru Efros – 1, and Vasile Vatamanu took no vote. The congress was attended by 185 candidates.