November 3: The Romanian Football Federation (FRF) and discount supermarket chain PENNY Romania have announced the conclusion of a joint initiative designed to mobilize local communities and support the development of youth sports across the country.
The campaign, which ran from September to October, allowed PENNY customers to convert loyalty points into tangible sporting equipment and resources for youth football clubs.
The fourth edition of the link achieved a record participation, distributing donations worth more than 1.1 million euros (5.76 million donated points) among nearly 900,000 individual donations on the platform.
Compared to the previous year, the initiative saw a 44% increase in total points donated and a 38.26% increase in the total number of donations, largely driven by a doubling of actively participating clubs. Of the more than 1,700 clubs registered, more than 1,000 sports clubs across the country received direct community support, placing a total of 4,039 equipment orders compared to 2,515 in the previous edition.
“This year’s results show that ‘Liga Punctelor PENNY’ continues to bring more and more people together around youth football,” said Daniel Gross, CEO of PENNY | REWE Romania. “Each point donated is a simple gesture that, combined with hundreds of thousands of others, generates concrete support for clubs across the country. For us, this growing engagement is the most significant indicator of the campaign’s success.”
Răzvan Burleanu, president of the Romanian Football Federation, highlighted the strategic impact of the initiative: “A 38% increase in donations and the doubling of active clubs on the platform show that our support reaches exactly where it is needed most: to children and young people who aspire to achieve performance. For the FRF, partnerships like this represent strategic commitments for the sustainable development of Romanian football.”
Throughout its four editions, “Liga Punctelor PENNY” has involved 3,745 clubs from all over the country. Before this edition, the program had already invested more than 8.9 million RON in sports equipment for more than 2,000 participating youth teams.
PENNY is part of the German REWE group and has been one of the leading retailers in Romania since it launched its first local store in 2005. Supported by five logistics centers (Ștefăneștii de Jos, Turda, Bacău, Filiași and Mihăilești), PENNY currently operates 474 stores across the country with a workforce of over 8,00000 employees. PENNY was officially certified as the best employer in Romania and Europe for 2026.
Contact the writer of this story, Alexander Krassimirov, at (email protected)