Virgil Economu (21 November 1896 – 6 July 1978) was a Romanian rugby player, football manager, journalist and a writer.
[2] He spent his high school years in Vienna, and graduated the University of Agronomy from Montpellier, where he also played rugby for the local team.
[2][4] In 1940, Romania had to play a friendly in Frankfurt against Germany but Economu did not receive an entrance visa because of his Jewish origin, but Romania's Football Federation president Gabriel Marinescu wrote a letter to Wilhelm Fabricius who was Adolf Hitler's minister from Bucharest, in which he asked him to give Economu an entrance visa, claiming he is of ethnic Romanian origin.
[2][5] He also suffered discrimination in Romania because of his Jewish origins, being fired in October 1940 from the post of General Inspector at the Center for the Capitalization of Wheat and in December 1941 his name disappeared from the army records, where he was listed as a lieutenant in reserve, a decision published in Romania's Official Gazette.
[2][4] From 1967 until 1968, Economu was Ilie Savu's counselor at Steaua București and from 1967 until 1974 he worked again for the Romanian Football Federation.