Romania's women's national handball team will spend the weeks before the European Championship living inside BT Arena in Cluj-Napoca, the federation has announced, after head coach Ovidiu Mihăilă ordered his expanded squad of 35 players to train in the stands in front of the empty seats where supporters will sit in December.
Under the new timetable, players report to the arena at 6:00 each morning and remain there until the last floodlight is switched off. Meals are served from a single kitchen set up behind the north stand, and the federation has confirmed that the squad's bedrooms have been moved into a row of container units built on the car park. Staff say the containers were delivered in eleven lorries and assembled in four days, and that the local bakery has been asked to supply bread for 35 athletes on a daily schedule.
Mihăilă defended the arrangement at a short briefing held in the centre circle. «We are not preparing to play in front of these seats,» he said. «We are preparing to be the seats.» Asked how the players would rest, he said that sleep is scheduled between the second and third sessions and that any player found outside the arena boundary after 22:00 will be required to spend the following afternoon re-marking the court lines by hand.
Local residents report that the car park has been fenced off and that a rota of volunteers now stands guard at the gates in shifts. The city council has approved a temporary bus route that loops the arena every twenty minutes, and a queue of spectators has already formed outside the box office, hoping to buy tickets for matches that have not yet been drawn.