17.11.2023
In a letter to FIFA President Gianni Infantino Prime Minister Acad. Nikolai Denkov called on the International Association Football Federation (FIFA) to get involved in the situation of the Bulgarian Football Union (BFU) in keeping with the rights and responsibilities as drawn in the FIFA Statutes.
The letter is a response to the accumulated tension that led to a large-scale protest against the BFU President Borislav Mihaylov on the day of the Bulgaria-Hungary match and the riots and violence that this provoked in downtown Sofia last night.
The Prime Minister appealed to FIFA to discuss and propose possible solutions to the unprecedented situation as he referred to Art. 8 (2) of the Statutes: “Executive bodies of member associations may under exceptional circumstances be removed from office by the Council in consultation with the relevant confederation and replaced by a normalization committee for a specific period of time.”
In the letter, the Prime Minister noted the long-amassed criticism and dissatisfaction of football clubs by the leadership of the BFU and the unprecedented unification of rival fan clubs in their rage against it. The letter mentions the fact that more than 140 clubs (out of 550 in total) that voted against the current BFU management were subsequently expelled from the Union following its Congress in May 2022.
