games and there will now be a criminal
trial, with charges of “crimes against
sport” and “corrupt crimes”. The chief
of the BFU referee commission, Yordan
Stalev, was interviewed, along with several
other members of the commission, but
he insisted: “I have not been arrested. I
just was called to be interviewed. What
did they ask me? Forget about it!”
Three days later, at an extraordinary
meeting of ExCo, Mihaylov and all the
other ExCo members officially tendered
their resignations. Mihaylov was head
of the BFU for 14 years and had been
a member of UEFA’s ExCo since 2011.
Until an extraordinary congress to
be held at the start of next year, the
provisional president of the BFU will
be the current vice-president Mihail
Kassabov, who has already declared
that he will not be a candidate for
BULGARIA
the presidency at the Congress.
National coach Krassimir Balakov also
resigned, saying: “Sometimes there are
times like this in your life – a man finds
himself in a difficult situation. In the last
25-30 years I have done a lot to fight
against racism.”
The only ExCo member who didn’t
agree with Balakov’s resignation, firstvice-president Yordan Lechkov, was
the man charged with finding a new
national coach and he has turned to
former Ludogorets and Levski Sofia
boss Georgi Dermendzhiev.
“Bulgaria are not the only team that
is losing matches,” says Dermendzhiev.
“The important thing now is to work
hard and do our best to raise the level.
“Regardless of the recent results, I see
some spark. I believe we have a chance
to qualify for a major championship. This
is our goal.”
Lechkov’s next challenge will be to
appoint a new BFU president and it was
interesting to note a comment on social
media from Dimitar Berbatov, who posted
a picture of himself and his agent, Emil
Danchev, with the message: “We have
been working together for 20 years now
...now working on our next move.”Calm...England
manager Gareth
Southgate made
his feelings known