By Alexander Krassimirov
September 10 – The leader of the Bulgarian political party ‘Movement 21’ Tatyana Doncheva announced on TV that Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and Delyan Peevski, member of the parliamentary group of the liberal ethnic Turkish party Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS), are the real owners of top league club Levski through front men. According to her, Levski is most obvious example of political dependence in Bulgarian football.
“Just look at the football team of Levski. Look at the saga in football. For months, the supporters of Levski claim they know who the owner of the club is, but do not want to name aloud. Inside is a stooge of Boyko Borisov – Ivo Tonev, and stooge of Delyan Peevski – Alexander Angelov,” Doncheva said in an interview with Bulgarian Nova Television.
Tonev and Angelov took over the management at Levski two months ago when Todor Batkov stepped down.
“There is no way a lawyer and Ivo Tonev can put (that kind of) money on the table. Not for months but for years everybody knows that Batkov was held on a short rein and that nobody wanted to say aloud who actually owns the shares of Levski,” said Doncheva.
According to Doncheva there was pressure from the Bulgarian Football Union to remove CSKA from professional football in Bulgaria.
“At the same time there is a pressure from Bulgarian Football Union CSKA to go into the regional groups. Why? Because in the Bulgarian Football Union there are hundreds of fake clubs which do not operate and have no teams, but who hold two thirds of the general meeting of the national association.”
Doncheva called for changes in the Bulgarian legislation on the football clubs.
“We must introduce legislation as Spanish or Greek. You need to enable clubs to be non-profit associations. The state must intervene very authoritatively. If you can deal with fixed games, if you can adjust how foreigners and how many Bulgarians to play in our championship, if you can deal with this corrupt machine that uses football supporters for political purposes, after three or four years we will have visible results.
“And it is clear that the ruling majority in the face of GERB and DPS will not deal with the problem that derive dividends for them,” she concluded.
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