Romanian businessman Ion Tiriac has announced on Monday he has opened a lawsuit against the National Bank of Romania (BNR).
“There are documents we have submitted to the Bucharest Court today, so today we have opened the lawsuit against the National Bank of Romania. Who are we? We are some former athletes, some athletes in activity and, if need, in the next two weeks I can gather up to 200,000 signatures from the athletes to be,” Ion Tiriac said.
The lawsuit refers to the tennis BNR Arenas downtown Bucharest. Tiriac claims the BNR Arenas should become a diamond downtown Bucharest dedicated to tennis. “A tennis academy would be perfect there, for the little ones and so on. (…) The Governor, who managed the arenas, should show us the profit he made in the past 26 years. We then multiply the profit and see the amount it leads us to. We hope to have a solution, it’s all we can do,” Ion Tiriac said.
In November, Ion Tiriac announced he would sue the BNR, as he received no answer to the petition filed with the Government in October regarding the BNR Arenas in Cotroceni neighbourhood.
“The 30 days we agreed upon have gone, the deadline expired and I have found nothing about the BNR Arenas. So, we go to court,” Tiriac said during an event at the Romanian Athenaeum.
Several former and current tennis players, including Ion Ţiriac, Ilie Năstase and Simona Halep filed a petition to the Romanian Government requesting the return of the BNR Arenas in the sports circuit, namely to transfer the base from the administration of the National Bank of Romania to the Romanian state, in order to be modernized and used for sports purposes.
The petitioners are: Ioan Ţiriac, Ilie Năstase, Virginia Ruzici, Simona Halep, Irina Begu, Sorana Cîrstea, Andrei Pavel, Horia Tecău, Florin Mergea, Marius Copil, Adrian Ungur, Nicolae Frunză, George Cosac, Cosmin Hodor, and juniors Rares Golescu (10 years old, 4th in national rankings), Stefan Haita (9 years old, 20th national) and Mihai Haita (11 years, 70th place national) – through their legal representatives.
“I wish we could play again on the Central Court at BNR Arenas. It would be a loss not to use it, especially that we have lots of girls ranking in the top 100. Lots of children come to tennis. It would be a pity to lose the women’s tournament,” tennis player Simona Halep said at the time.