What’s the most popular sport in Romania?

Romania has a long and prestigious history within sport and what better place to start than football. Like many countries in Europe, football is the most popular sport in Romania and they now boast a long list of internationally known players and former players including Gheorghe Hagi, who had a glistening career with some of the biggest teams in the world, Dan Petrescu and Cristian Chivu. When it comes to their teams, Steaua Bucuresti are perhaps the most well-known after becoming the first Eastern European club to win the Champions League. To this day, they remain only one of two in Eastern Europe to win the prestigious tournament.

Away from football, handball is also extremely popular in Romania and their national team has won the World Cup four times which is a record held with Sweden; the women’s team has also won the competition once. At club level, Steaua and Dinamo have won a number of European competitions which has put the country firmly on the map. Basketball is also enjoyed, especially by the youth in Romania, and they have even seen one of their players, Gheorghe Muresan, enter the NBA in the early 1990s. He went on to become one of the tallest ever players in the league and one of the leaders of growing the sport for Romania along with fellow product, Toni Alexe. The final popular team sport is Rugby Union which has had a place in Romania for over 80 years. Although their reputation may have fallen of late, they have still been at every single World Cup since its inception.

When it comes to individual sports, gymnastics seems to lead the way and the sport is responsible for a large amount of Romania’s 283 medals at the Olympic Games over the years. Of course, the Romanian gymnast, Nadia Comaneci, will always be remembered for scoring the first ever perfect 10 at the 1976 Games. Tennis has also been strong in the nation having been to three Davis Cup finals and having Ilie Nastase who won a number of Grand Slams throughout his career. Boxing rounds off the top three individual sports and has been extremely popular with TV broadcasting over the years. Romania also has its traditional sport of Oina which is a game similar to baseball.

Romania has a long, successful history with the Olympic Games after appearing in every event since 1952 and accumulating 283 medals (15th in the official rankings) which is a surprise given the size of the country.

In the future, it doesn't look as though anything can topple football as it has over 110,000 competitors, nearly 100,000 more than tennis in second. In addition to this, there are over 3,000 football clubs available and less than 200 tennis clubs. Football really is the nations sport and this is something that simply will not change in the immediate future. The Romanian Premier Division draws in an average of 5,400 people per game with a national high of 1.6 million during the 2006/07 season.

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