Sporting Lisbon claim €31m from Bulgaria’s Levski Sofia

Boj signs Levski

By Alexander Krassimirov
June 11 – Portugal’s Sporting Lisbon is poised to file a legal claim against Bulgaria’s Levski Sofia for the amount of €31 million. The dispute centres around the Portuguese claim that Levski have illegally signed Bulgarian striker Valeri Bojinov.

Bojinov was sacked by Sporting for disciplinary reasons last year, and then signed a contract with Levski. However, Sporting claim that a clause in the player’s contract means they are now owed money and have threatened to bring two cases. The first is against Levski with a claim for €25 million for breaching the clause in Bokinov’s contract, while the second is against the player with a claim for €6 million.

The Bulgarian club has received the legal documents from Sporting and their lawyers are currently working on a formal response.

“We received all the documentation on Friday. It was sent to us by FIFA courier. The case is quite bulky, somewhere between 200 and 300 pages. We already sent the materials to our lawyers. They are familiar with the case, and we have a deadline by which we must give our opinion.

“We will inform FIFA what was our correspondence with his former club and what was the information we have received from them. Those amounts are big because we are talking about long-term relationships between the player and his former club,” said Levski’s CFO Konstantin Bajdekov.

Last September Valeri Bojinov and his agent Gennaro Palomba initiated proceedings against Sporting Lisbon. The footballer has filed a complaint to FIFA after the Portuguese club sacked him for disciplinary reasons and terminated his three-year contract. Earlier Sporting Lisbon released a statement saying that the contract of Bulgarian international was terminated due to “absence from work”.

According to latest information, Sporting and Bojinovs lawyers will try to make an out of court agree agreement.

Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1734844218labto1734844218ofdlr1734844218owedi1734844218sni@v1734844218orimi1734844218ssark1734844218.redn1734844218axela1734844218