Cupa Ligii

The Cupa Ligii (English: League Cup) was Romania's secondary club football tournament. Like the Cupa României, it was played on a knockout (single elimination) basis.

Cupa Ligii

Founded	2014
Abolished	2017
Region	Romania
Number of teams	14
Last champions	Dinamo București (1st title)
Most successful club(s)	FCSB (2 times)
Television broadcasters	Look TV Look Plus Digi Sport Dolce Sport
Website	Cupa Ligii at lpf.ro

History

It is unclear when the competition was first created, as there are no official recordings. It started in 1994, but there may already have been an edition as early as 1978. Cupa Ligii was meant to shorten the break between the end of the league season and the start of a major international competition.

The competition under the name of Samsung Cup was Gheorghe Copos' idea and was held at the end of the 1993-94 season with the 18 teams of the Romanian first division and Rapid Bucharest being the winner and received a financial reward of $100,000. It had a friendly character and was played in 1998 and 2000 before being dropped.^[1]

In April 2014, it was decided to re-establish the competition, this time with official character, starting with the 2014–15 edition.^[2] Managed by the Liga Profesionistă de Fotbal (LPF), only teams from the Romanian top division were allowed to take part. FCSB (twice) and Dinamo București were winners of the cup before being abolished again in 2017.^[3]

Unofficial finals (1994–2000)

Season	Winner	Score	Runner-up	Venue
1994	FC Rapid București	5–1	UTA Arad	?
1998	FCM Bacău	3–2 (a.e.t.)	Universitatea Cluj	ANEFS Stadium, Bucharest
2000	Gloria Bistrița	2–2 (a.e.t.) 3–1 (pen.)	FCM Bacău	Cotroceni Stadium, Bucharest

Finals (2014-2017)

There were three previous friendly cups held in 1994, 1998 and 2000. Those were won by Rapid București, FCM Bacău and Gloria Bistrița.^[4][5][6][7]

Season	Winner	Score	Runner-up	Venue
2014–15	Steaua București	3–0	Pandurii Târgu Jiu	Arena Națională, Bucharest
2015–16	Steaua București	2–1 (a.e.t.)	Concordia Chiajna
2016–17	Dinamo București	2–0	ACS Poli Timișoara

Broadcasters

From the 2014–15 season to the 2018–19 season, sister channels Look TV and Look Plus were meant to broadcast Cupa Ligii.^[8] The matches could have also been viewed on Digi Sport and Dolce Sport.