Ionel Ganea

Ionel Ganea

Personal information
Full name	Ioan Viorel Ganea
Position(s)	Striker
Team information
Current team	Politehnica Timişoara
Number	9
‡ National team caps and goals, correct as of August 8, 2007

Ioan Viorel Ganea, often shortened to Vio Ganea (born 10 August 1973) is a Romanian football striker with FCU Politehnica Timişoara.

He was born in Făgăraş and debuted in Liga 1 (Divizia A at that time) with FC Braşov in 1994.

Ganea made his debut for the Romanian national team in 1999 against Estonia, scoring 2 goals. He represented his country at Euro 2000 and scored a goal against England that qualified Romania to the quarter finals. He currently has 45 caps and 18 goals.

On 27 December 2006, Ganea broke his contract with Dinamo Bucharest to join Rapid Bucharest on a record 350,000 euros ($462,000 USD) a season. Although contracted to the end of 2009, Ganea went on a free transfer to FCU Politehnica Timişoara on 15 June 2007, despite the fact that he could earn up to 1 million euros a season due to bonus at Rapid. [1]

Controversy

While playing for Romania in April 2004 he tackled Celtic F.C. defender John Kennedy, resulting in a knee injury that left Kennedy unable to play for 3 years.

In April 2006 he was involved in even more controversy as he blasted Wolverhampton Wanderers manager at that time, Glenn Hoddle. [2] He claimed that he is the most difficult manager he worked with in his career.

In August 2007 he attacked an assistent referee after being sent off, grabbing his face with one hand and punching him one time in the back with the other. It took four team mates to calm him down. He now faces a 16 match ban and is likely to sign for Glasgow Rangers.

External Links

• RomanianSoccer.ro
• Ganea hits a referee
• Ganea hits a player from the oposite team