IN 1994, Hristo Stoichkov and friends caused one of the biggest World Cup upsets by beating Germany en route to the semi-finals.
But, these days, Bulgarian football tends to be in the news for the wrong reasons.
Take last weekend when top-flight side Arda Kardzhali apologised for holding a minute’s silence to honour former player Petko Ganchev who, it transpired, was still alive.
If that suggests that club administration leaves a bit to be desired, it did not stop the league president Atanas Karaivanov from calling for the national team manager Ilian Iliev – also in charge of Cherno More – to resign.
A decision has been put on hold until after their Nations League play-off against Ireland but both episodes illustrate the often chaotic state of the game here.
Ranked eighth in 1995, the national team is currently 82nd, the result – critics say – of failing to invest in youth development, instead relying on cheap imports to fill club teams.
It has not helped it improve either. The First Professional Football League is 29th in Europe, compared to 17th a decade and a half ago, just two ahead of the League of Ireland.
Although Ludogorets beat Shamrock Rovers comfortably when the sides met three years ago, our clubs have, for a third time, accumulated more coefficient points in Europe this season.
And despite being on course for a 13th successive title, the Razgrad club – bankrolled by Kiril Domuschiev who made his initial fortune buying up state assets after the fall of communism – attracts an average crowd of just 1,516 for league matches.
Half of the 16 top-flight clubs count attendances in the hundreds. Our Premier Division average this season is 5,524.
Even taking out the once-off game between Bohemians and Rovers at the Aviva Stadium, there is a gap of nearly 2,000 fans per match between the two leagues.
Exactly half of Bulgaria’s 26-man squad are based at home but Iliev is not exactly spoiled for choice.
Ludogorets have just seven Bulgarians in a squad of 27, contributing to the statistic of 52.4 percent of the league’s players being foreigners.
The League of Ireland statistic is 30.3 percent but players from Northern Ireland account for a sixth of that total.
Another figure with which our league cannot compete is the murder rate among presidents or former club owners. 15 were killed in Bulgaria between 2003 and 2013.
That helps explain the 2010 diplomatic cable sent from the US Embassy in Sofia which said some clubs were ‘widely believed to be directly or indirectly controlled by organised crime figures who use their teams as a way to legitimise themselves, launder money, or make a fast buck.”
Things have improved somewhat since those dark days, although remain a far remove from the standards of the League of Ireland.
For example, the Russian owner Anton Zingarevich of Botev Plovdiv – whose stadium hosts tonight’s first leg – was given a 10-year ban from entering Bulgaria by the country’s counter-intelligence agency.
No reason was given but the former Reading owner and his dad Boris have been sanctioned by Ukraine because of their alleged links to the Russian President Vladimir Putin
But there are others closer to home who are in the firing line too with Bulgaria’s golden generation standing accused of squandering their legacy.
Yordan Letchkov – scorer of the winner against Germany – was removed as mayor of his hometown Sliven for corruption.
He and Emil Kostadinov both had spells as vice-president of the Bulgarian Football Union with former goalkeeper Borislav Mihaylov forced to step down as its president for a second time in 2023.
Of that 1994 squad, Stoichkov, Krassimir Balakov and Petar Hubchev all tried and failed to revive the national team’s fortunes. Three players – including Celtic hero Stiliyan Petrov – retired from international football after rows with Stoichkov.
In 2019, Balakov was forced to resign after just five months after his implausible denial of racist behaviour by fans during a game against England which also prompted Mihaylov’s initial departure.
Iliev has been in charge for 14 months now but, with 20 changes in just 28 years, he knows that – whatever about the unfortunate Ganchev – rumours of a manager’s demise are rarely premature.
