Since once again Bulgarian football is in the international headlines and again with nothing positive, we would like to try and explain Bulgarian football culture and its problems so we can give a bit of perspective to our foreign readers.
First it’s very important to note that football in the country is at an all time low and this wasn’t the case just 10 years ago when few Bulgarians were among the ranks of the European elite.
Most notably Dimitar Berbatov was banging goals for Manchester United after impressing sir Alex Ferguson while at Tottenham Hotspur. And he was not the only big name out there. Stilian “Stanley” Petrov was a real leader at Celtic and then Aston Villa and Martin Petrov was playing for Manchester City. Valeri Bojinov was still considered promising player and also played for City and later for Juventus, which right now seems insane since he ended up back in Bulgarian football and barely scores any goals these days. Currently there are no promising Bulgarian players and there is no one that is playing or has a chance of playing at teams like Manchester United, Barcelona, Juventus, Manchester City or even Tottenham. Not even close. One player that was hyped named Kiril Despodov moved to Cagliari but he rarely features in the starting eleven. And he is considered the best among the players in Bulgarian club football!
So the country which has boasted great players throughout the years like Asparuhov, Stoichkov and Berbatov now finds itself scraping for points and wins. The same goes for club football. Teams are owned by very rich men with shady pasts who have no real experience in building or running football clubs apart from the good-ol “throw money at the problem and hope something happens” approach. There are no plans for the future, there is no idea, no path to follow. Corruption among coaches is widespread and many players report that in order for them to play in the starting eleven of the youth teams their parents have to pay up to 5000 euro to the said coaches. There is a huge disconnect between the club presidents, the Bulgarian Football Union (BFU) and the clubs themselves. The result of all this is that Bulgarian club football is in a terrible slump. The game played in the Bulgarian stadiums every weekend is of very low quality and tactically primitive. Local players are just not good enough and the rare glimpses of entertainment often come from some foreign Brazilian or African recruit who has been tempted to join the Bulgarian league thanks to the huge sums of money offered by the owners.
As a result the regular Bulgarian fan still lives and dies for the game but has totally given up on it. Most people now have access to the Premier league, La Liga, Serie A and prefer to watch some of the world’s greatest stars dazzle them from the comfort of their own homes. The alternative is going to a stadium and watching people who can barely string 2 passes together play something that resembles football. And of course the regular fan always has to worry about the danger of violence escalating from the various Ultras or Hooligans factions. And here we arrive at the real problem. See, in the last 20 years Bulgaria did “England in reverse” meaning that the normal and non-violent people stopped going to stadiums, while mostly the Ultras/Hooligans kept supporting their teams at every game, since this bunch is very tribalistic and full of anger and hate. Unfortunately for any country that has economic problems these types of people band together and don’t have much to look forward to except being loud, drunk and violent at football games. It is their last arena, their escape from the real world where they are bus boys, waiters or security guards. They are not well educated and pretty much lost for modern humanistic values like equality and tolerance to people who are different. But it is very important to note that the regular Bulgarian is not siding with these type of people and is also ashamed and disgusted. While most Bulgarians still have their reservations against people of different color and sexual orientation, they do still accept them. This was evidenced by the recent Pride Parade in Sofia where the event was allowed to happen and met no serious opposition. Only one leader of a far right and ultra nationalistic party expressed his disgust with the Parade and he was condemned by pretty much all of the media and leaders of the other parties.
We see some people calling for Bulgaria to be banned from the next few international tournaments but this would not be fair since the racist chants and nazi symbols came from a small but very loud minority. Banning Bulgaria or banning the ultras from the stadiums will not remove the hate and ignorance from their hearts. It will just sweep the problem under the carpet and away from TV cameras. How to deal with these individuals is not an issue that the current Bulgarian society can solve but also it is not the only society dealing with this problem.
As for the president of the BFU Borislav Mihaylov (who finally resigned today) - he is universally hated by football fans since all of this happened on his watch and he took no measures aimed at fixing the problem. He has been in charge for the last 14 years and yet he has no plans about the ultras, no plans about the development of youth talent and no idea what to do in general. Under his “guidance” Bulgaria has become one of the worst countries at football in Europe and this for the regular fan is unacceptable. Bulgaria still remembers reaching the semi-finals of the 1994 World Cup which to Bulgarians is what to Brazilians is 58’ or 66’ to Englishmen. The country has proud history in the game and has managed to reach 8 World Cup tournaments. Unfortunately the last time the nation was represented in a World Cup was back in France in 1998 and it was all downhill from there.
As you can see the situation is complex and quite troubling and it seems that the future of Bulgarian football is a terrible one and no one has the answers but hopefully anyone reading this will have understood it a bit better.
So, you basically start to appreciate bulgarian football when you are good again? With that attitude, you have a long wait ahead of you.
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