17.11.2023
Mismanagement of Bulgarian football for years, bad organization of the match yesterday, a blunder that brought together rival football fans. These were some of the reasons given by Prime Minister Acad. Nikolai Denkov as main reasons for the disgusting scenes yesterday around the Vassil Levski National Stadium during the qualifier match between Bulgaria and Hungary. As he wrote, the current management of the Bulgarian Football Union (BFU) brought Bulgarian football to this degrading state while the uncoordinated acts to organize the match yesterday additionally escalated the tension. The Prime Minister emphasized the mistakes made by the leaderships of the Ministry of Interior and the Sofia Metropolitan Directorate of Interior that allowed rival fan clubs to mix in the street.
Regarding this, Prime Minister Acad. Nikolai Denkov sent a letter to the UEFA President and the UEFA Ethics Body asking them to give their position on the organization of the wretched match between Bulgaria and Hungary. FIFA will be likewise approached to give its position on the same matter. In his letter to UEFA, the Prime Minister emphasized that the organization of the match was compromised on many levels, underwent several venue changes and was played behind closed doors. Motivated by their rage against the BFU decisions, fans of football clubs countrywide who demand the resignation of BFU President Borislav Mihaylov, provoked riots in Sofia before the match, during the match and after the match.
Due to what happened yesterday, Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov dismissed Stoyan Temelakiev, Deputy Minister of Interior, who is directly in charge of the MoI operations. Whether Minister of Interior Kalin Stoyanov would be removed from office is for the Prime Minister to discuss with the Deputy Prime Minister Mariya Gabriel. In addition, Acad. Nikolai Denkov assigned to the MoI Secretary General Zhivko Kotsev to investigate as quickly as possible and objectively the observed cases of acts of violence by individual police officers. Their names should be made public and they should be subject to maximum disciplinary sanctions, including dismissal from the MoI divisions.
Prime Minister Acad. Nikolai Denkov thanked specially all fans who were peaceful protesters and the police officers who did their duty without resorting to violence in an extremely packed confrontational situation.
