Bulgaria coach accuses England of racism problem

Bulgaria coach Krasimir Balakov has accused England of having a bigger racism problem than his own country before the Euro 2020 qualifier in Sofia on Monday.

The build-up to the game has been overshadowed by fears England's players could be subjected to abuse after they were targeted during the qualifier against Montenegro in Podgorica in March.

England will face Bulgaria with a section of the Natsionalen Stadion Vasil Levski closed following incidents of racism during games against Kosovo and the Czech Republic in June, with Uefa ordering that 5,000 of the 46,340 seats be blocked off for Monday's game and 3,000 against Czech Republic in November.

England manager Gareth Southgate held a meeting with his players to underline the Uefa protocol in dealing with such incidents - but the subject has provoked an angry response from the Bulgarian football authorities and now coach Balakov has back defiantly.

Bulgaria Football Union president Borislav Mihaylov wrote a letter of complaint to Uefa about "unjust branding" while Balakov said: "What I can say is that I don't think we have a problem. "In the Bulgarian championship, we have a lot of players of different ethnicities and skin colour. I don't think that we have this big problem like, for example, England do."

Asked to elaborate, Balakov added: "What I meant was that in the Bulgarian championship we've not had

also

hit such problems while there have been incidents in various levels of English football involving racism, which I consider something normal because it's a big country with a very diverse population. "But we don't have this problem in Bulgaria, I can assure you of that."

Uefa protocol decrees that in the event of racist chanting the referee will ask for an announcement to be broadcast in the stadium, and if it does not stop he or she will take the players off, initially temporarily but permanently if necessary.