What constitutes a football club? Is it the crest? The squad? The colours? The directors? The fans? Those questions appear relevant when trying to sort out the case of “Poli Timisoara”, a situation that epitomises the potential excesses when free markets and football collide.

You may think it is just a dull case of semantics and intellectual property, but to fans of a club it is of paramount importance. Especially now that one of the clubs involved has been docked six points, which led to thousands of supporters taking to the streets and fighting police.

The story begins in western Romania in 1921 with the founding of Politehnica 1921 Stiinta Timisoara, a football club linked to the local university. “Poli Timisoara”, as they were known, were bought in the late 1990s by an Italian businessman, Claudio Zambon. As new owners usually do, he promised massive investments, but, in 2000, he moved the club lock, stock and barrel to a suburb of Bucharest. However, Zambon did not rename the club, a bit like Leeds United moving to Swindon and keeping their name.

It was a shock similar to that suffered by Wimbledon fans seven years ago, when their side announced plans to relocate to Milton Keynes. However, unlike Wimbledon supporters, who founded a new club, AFC Wimbledon, and started from the bottom of the pyramid, Timisoara fans did not have to wait long for big-time football. A top-flight club, AEK Bucharest, made the opposite journey to “Poli” and moved into Timisoara in 2002 and became Politehnica AEK Timisoara.

Don’t feel bad for the AEK Bucharest fans, though. They didn’t have much time to get to know AEK because it used to be known as Fulgerul Bragadiru. Having been moved from the south of Romania to the capital, Fulgerul was renamed AEK by its owner, Anton Dobos, who had once played for AEK Athens. To “Poli” fans, Politehnica AEK Timisoara effectively replaced the old club, a process accelerated when their crest and colours were changed to mimic the “other” Poli Timisoara.

Now there were two Poli Timisoaras: the “real” one, based hundreds of miles away in Bucharest and languishing in the lower divisions, and a clone, which at least could count on local support and a place in the top flight.

Cue the lawyers and an inevitable legal battle. Zambon sued the “new” Poli Timisoara, accusing them of copyright infringement, illegally using the club’s colours and staking a fraudulent claim on their history, which includes two Romanian Cups. The “new” Poli was forced to renounce all claims on the club’s history before 2002 and change the name, crest and colours from the historic violet and white.

They did so, becoming FC Timisoara and adding black to the official club colours, but they took their fight to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the highest level of footballing justice. And that’s when the story took its latest, most absurd, turn. According to the CAS’s ruling, “there is barely a hint of black” and “violet remains the predominant colour” of the club. This is partly why, last week, FC Timisoara were found not to be complying with the CAS ruling and Fifa ordered the Romanian FA to dock them six points.

The affair would be funny were it not so depressing. Zambon’s insistence on protecting the “intellectual property” of a club he uprooted and dumped into the semi-professional ranks is contemptible. FC Timisoara’s attempts to be clever (with the name, the crest and the colours) are also misguided, especially when their own existence is predicated upon relocating another club from another part of the country. Their new owner, Marian Iancu, is threatening to withdraw the club from the league, a reaction as extreme as it is childish.

One would have thought the basic building block of a club was their fans, not the players, the shirts, the crest or even the history. And that football-lovers in Timisoara should just be happy that they have a club to support. But where there’s money at stake – FC Timisoara are in the Uefa Cup – there are usually lawyers crawling out from under their rocks ready to take everyone to court.

And another thing . . .

Will Danny live up to his £24m price tag at Zenit?

Robinho was the most expensive player in this summer’s transfer market, just ahead of Dimitar Berbatov. Daniel Alves, from Seville to Barcelona for £25.8 million, was third. It’s the man who was fourth who raises the most eyebrows. Zenit St Petersburg paid Dynamo Moscow £24.2 million for Danny, below, a Portugal midfield player. For those who don’t know who he is (and I’m sure there are many), Danny is 25 and has just one Portugal cap. He moved to Russia in 2005 – before that he had made just one start for Sporting Lisbon – and has not played a minute of Champions League football.

Either Zenit know something I don’t or they have overpaid massively. It’s probably the former – Danny did look very good against Manchester United in the Uefa Super Cup.

Revolution just roll over

Whenever you think that Major League Soccer is taking a step forward, it finds a way of shooting itself in the foot. The New England Revolution were defeated 4-0 at home in the Concacaf Champions League by a team from Trinidad called – wait for it – Joe Public. They are now out of the competition, 6-1 on aggregate.

Joe Public: what more can you say?