Bulgaria boss quits amid racism storm
SOFIA: Bulgaria’s football chief resigned on Tuesday after racist chanting marred England’s Euro 2020 qualifier in Sofia, as Uefa chief Aleksander Ceferin said the sport needed to “wage war” on abusers.
England eased to a 6-0 victory over their hosts in the Bulgarian capital on Monday but the game was blighted by offensive chants, forcing the match to be halted twice in the first half.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the “vile” racism, which included monkey noises and apparent Nazi salutes, and called for tough action from Uefa.
As temperatures rose his Bulgarian counterpart, Boyko Borisov, urged the country’s football union president to quit.
“I urge Borislav Mihaylov to hand in his resignation immediately!” Borisov wrote on Facebook, adding it was “inadmissible that Bulgaria... is associated with racism and xenophobia”.
Hours later the Bulgarian Football Union said in a statement Mihaylov had offered his resignation and would hand it to the members of the BFU executive committee tomorrow, citing “tension created over the past days, which is detrimental to Bulgarian football”.
His resignation came shortly before the BFU’s headquarters were raided by special prosecutors and police, although it is not clear if the swoop was related to Mihaylov’s resignation or Monday night’s abuse of England’s black players.
Shortly before Uefa announced it had launched a probe into the behaviour of the Bulgarian fans, its president Ceferin stressed the commitment of European football’s governing body to root out the “disease” of racism.
“More broadly, the football family — everyone from administrators to players, coaches and fans — needs to work with governments and NGOs to wage war on the racists and to marginalise their abhorrent views to the fringes of society,” he said.