The Corrupt Decline of Bulgarian Football

In this deep dive into the world of Bulgarian football, we unravel the corruption and ineptitude that led to the downfall of this footballing nation. Join us as we explore the heights of Bulgaria's heyday at the 1994 World Cup, navigate through the challenges of post-communist corruption, and witness the struggles faced by iconic clubs CSKA and Levski Sofia. From the rise of Ludogorets to the inspiring journey of Berbatov and his bid to rescue Bulgarian football, this video covers it all....hopefully.
Disclaimer
All rights for the images used go their respective owners. I believe all content used falls under the remits of Fair Use, but if any content owners would like to dispute this I will not hesitate to immediately remove said content. It is not my intent to in any way infringe on their content ownership. If you happen to find your art or images in the video please let me know and I will be glad to credit you. Business e-mail: [e-mail]
Music by teodholina from Pixabay
🇧🇬 Featured Topics:
1994 World Cup Glory: Relive the euphoria of Bulgaria's historic run.
Post-Communist Corruption: Examine the challenges faced by Bulgarian football in the aftermath.
CSKA and Levski Sofia's Struggles: Delve into the turbulent times of these iconic clubs.
Rise of Ludogorets: Explore the ascent of Ludogorets and their impact on the national scene.
Berbatov's Bid to Save Bulgarian Football: Follow Dimitar Berbatov's endeavors to revive the sport in his homeland.
#BulgarianFootball, #FootballDownfall, #1994WorldCup, #CorruptionInFootball, #CSKA, #LevskiSofia, #Ludogorets, #Berbatov, #BulgariaSoccer,, #FootballHistory, #SportsCorruption, #SoccerCrisis, #BulgarianSports,

[@he_football]

A very big thank you to Kai Iliev, who has helped me massively with the writing of this video. You can find his work through these links: twitter.com/jdeposicion eljdp.medium.com

[@illyrianhylli192]

Make an video for Albanian 🇦🇱 team buddy

[@he_football]

@@illyrianhylli192 I am planning videos for a lot of Eastern European countries and their football

[@illyrianhylli192]

@he_football OK bro 👌

[@thomasjohnson2862]

Great video - makes me wonder how Bulgaria got into the EU, with its endemic corruption. The number of club president assassinations is pretty chilling.

[@he_football]

Thank you. I wonder that as well. I guess they hoped the corruption would diminish with EU oversight?

[@michaelfarquhar9355]

@@he_footballyeah it’s rife with corruption over there with the mafia I was in Bulgaria for holiday about 30 yrs ago and it was nuts we were warned to just ignore gunfire if we heard it as it was a regular occurrence and when we went shopping at the little stalls it was full of old soviet war gear lol I came home with tank commanders watch and different badges and being from Scotland it was mind boggling 😂tbh it still is but was definitely a eye opener

[@michaelfarquhar9355]

Being a Celtic supporter I have always loved stan petrov he was a outstanding midfielder such a shame his career was cut short

[@he_football]

Celtic fans are always welcome here

[@michaelfarquhar9355]

@@he_football thanks👍

[@lemonacidrounds7293]

On top of that he was ill.

[@mihailrangelov8343]

Thank you for the video! I would say that Mihaylov is probably the most unpopular person in the country right now. Everybody hates him, but he still manages to get elected thanks to the flawed system that is in place in electing the president of the football federation.

[@he_football]

I am really glad you liked the video and I hope Berbatov wins the upcoming elections

[@torstimyle1355]

Mihaylov for life

[@Tom_bradys_unretirement]

@@torstimyle1355🤡🫵

[@sasho888prm]

​@he_football To be honest, I don't see how a new football president will revive the national team. Now that Mihailov has been replaced, I don't think anything will change in the near future as far as results go.

[@thntte2345]

Your best video so far man!

[@he_football]

Thank you very much

[@viktorpanayotov5653]

As promised, I watched this video and since you asked for an in-depth comment, I will deliver. Be prepared to read a lot though because I have a lot to say. Also because it'll be long, I will split it into a few comments. I will also split this into separate sections. I've tried to organize them somewhat chronologically or in a meaningful way, but I didn't put that much thought into it, as most of them don't corelate to each other. What cause the decline of football in my opinion: Well there are two main reasons. The first one is that there is no money in the country for football, which is connected to the country as a whole being run by criminals and shady businessman. But I will touch upon that in another section. But I would say the main reason for the downfall is that youth development in Bulgaria's football system is TRASH. And I don't mean just trash. I mean the trash that poops out trash and throws it away into the trash which is then taken by the garbage men to the city dump to be thrown into the biggest pile of trash. The gist of things is that coaches for the U11, U13, U15, etc etc, basically the young formations, are AWFUL and don't teach the kids properly. Not all of them are completely awful. There are some that are decent and don't ruin players from a young age. But at the same time, they also don't do enough to help them improve that much. CSKA: Currently, the reality is that the original and true CSKA Sofia died in 2016 by going bankrupt. That's how it is sadly. I'm a CSKA fan and it sucks not having a team to support, but that's the reality we live in. As you said, Grisha Ganchev simply renamed and rebranded Litex into CSKA-Sofia (with a dash in-between the name because the original team went bankrupt lol). And sadly 95% of the fans either don't support them (or CSKA 1948) or support them and look at them as the real CSKA, even though they most definitely aren't. Meanwhile CSKA 1948 started off promisingly. It truly was founded by fans in the army court house and the intention was to have the fans support it financially. However that turned out to be impossible, even as early as when the team entered the third tier. So they were forced to find a sponsor and then came efbet (the general sponsor of the whole Bulgarian First League) and their owner Tzvetomir Naydenov. He is probably a little bit better, although still almost as bad as Grisha Ganchev. Just a greedy businessman with a HUGE ego. He tends to go on Facebook a lot and writes a shit load of stupid shit and acts like a child in the body of a grown man. Basically if you add Naydenov and Ganchev together, you will get Gigi Becalli lol. Little by little Naydenov killed off what made CSKA 1948 different and interesting. They were presented as a club for fans and legends. That has been ruined because Naydenov has full control and the fans have no say. Also legends get hired and fire by him in the span of 3 to 6 months. Sometimes he fires them for no good reason too. Basically he shows them no respect. He shows no respect to fans too, often saying vulgar and moronic things to them. And he doesn't listen to them at all. I myself had a conversation with him a month or two ago. I told him to do what Hagi did. Become both the owner and the coach of the team, because usually he tries to be the coach in the shadows while hiring someone to be the "public" coach, even though they really aren't. So basically I told him to stop being a coward and take responsibility if he wants to control everything in the team. Unsurprisingly, he responded like a total idiot and didn't say anything that made any sense. Both Naydenov and Ganchev are crazy assholes, no different from Becalli. And the truth is that CSKA ended in 2016 and from its death came two now clubs who try to pass themselves off as CSKA. Stoichkov: It's extremely sad and disappointing how different Hagi and Stoichkov are. While Hagi has made his own academy, has won a title as both an owner and a coach, Stoichkov is busy doing advertisements for WINBET (a shady betting company) and Kaufland (a supermarket) just to make some cash so he can support his daughter who as far as I know, doesn't have a real job. She's just a pseudo-influencer with no shame. Basically Romania's legend actually cares about his country's football and puts in some effort to make things better. While Bulgaria's legend couldn't care less and is more concerned with funding his daughter's shameless lifestyle. Also Stoichkov is a minority owner in CSKA-Sofia which is by itself sad. Basically he decided to accept Litext Lovech as CSKA which is just awful. Levski and CSKA comparison: While both Levski and CSKA's fans are some of the worst and most toxic fans, I do give Levski fans some credit. They saw what happened to CSKA and didn't let it happen to their team. In the last 4 to 5 years, they have constantly gather money to keep Levski alive despite all their debts. And this year, Levski made some really good transfer and covered around half of their debts. So they are getting close to clearing their debts and becoming financially stable again. This is the difference between the fanbases. CSKA's fans didn't lift a finger to save the team, while Levski's fans did what they could. Granted, Levski fans had the advantage of seeing what would happen if they didn't help. But still.

[@azsumanton8853]

Why is nobody talking about pfk Cherno more as it is the 2nd bulgarian team based in 1913, but eveyone talks about Levski being oldes even tho it was found in 1914? It just makes no sense.

[@he_football]

I didn't know they were the first. Thanks for sharing

[@stephen123470]

Fantastic content. Well done 🎉

[@he_football]

Thank you very much

[@stefan5730]

Greetings from Serbia, it is really sad that Bulgarian football has fallen this much. Serbia has some of the same problems but our two biggest clubs where never privatised which helped save some of the few good things communism did like sports. Also Bulgarian league has too many mediocre foreign players, here in Serbia clubs cannot have more than 5 foreign players which helps development.

[@he_football]

Ar Red Star and Partizan fan owned or owned by the state? I didn't know about that rule with the 5 foreign players. Btw I'm planning videos for all Eastern European/ex communist countries in the future

[@stefan5730]

@@he_football They are registered as "civic organizations" but are actually bankrolled by the state, especially Red Star. Of course not all of us like it, but it is what it is. I guess it's better than just privatizing because no arab or russian oligarch will ever come to Serbia or Bulgaria. But I think the key thing for Bulgaria is integrating more young talent into big Bulgarian teams. If you take Dinamo Zagreb as an example of the best run club in the region they have 90% of Croat players and mostly young players. While Ludogorec has like one or two Bulgarian players, that's the key problem if you ask me...

[@he_football]

@@stefan5730 It's not as good as being fan owned sure but still better than foreign owners. About the local players I think you are right. If you don't have western data based recruitment and state of the art facilities at least improve local players

[@a.n.6374]

3:09 Levski didn't merge with Lokomotiv, but with Spartak(as seen on the picture from this Czech magazine), that remained the case until the 90s. Slavia and Lokomotiv were merged and split back a few years later.

[@he_football]

Thanks for correcting me

[@a.n.6374]

@@he_football yes, besides that the rest was pretty much flawless. Obviously you've done it before the march elections and we all know what happened there. Another recent development is cska's stadium is now almost completely bulldozed wth a promise of a new one and Ganchev left, as he doesn't have the money to do it. Some rumors of "reunification" with the other cska there. Especially after cska-Sofia's faliure to qualify for Europe and the resulted multiple home game ban after the riots in that playoff. Since there is also no stadium to argue about the path is open. Levski are also getting closer to a stadium deal, but with our owner's previous flops(google Joe Dixon) on announcing investor deals, now the board are very careful. The problem is no club except Slavia actually own their stadium. They are all either state or municipality owned and rented to clubs. The few old clubs with history predating communism trying to push for some sort of reimbursement, but it's a question of proving any sort of continuity with the legal entities from before 1944 as everything was dissolved over night and no records were kept. Slavia somehow managed it the 90s. You didn't cover the next 2 biggest clubs - Botev and Lokomotiv from Plovidv. They are the next best supported from the second biggest city and recently the government and the city of Plovdiv poured millions into their stadiums solving that problem for them. Botev have theirs finished and Lokomotiv is at about 3/5 done. The whole contry's taxes are used to payoff for stadiums that less than 1/10 of the population care about. This will be used as a pretext for Levski and CSKA to both push for government funding. We'll see how that goes.

[@he_football]

Thank you so much for the extra information. I'm very sad Berbatov didn't win but in a way I doubt he could have done much by himself against a whole corrupt system. Btw why is Plovdiv receiving so much support? Do they have political connections?

[@a.n.6374]

@@he_football I think it's somewhat similar to Romania. Every village team except Steaua and Dinamo getting a new stadium. If possible with EU money for "regional development" as if the babushkas in the villages care about stadiums. The rest of the country hates the capital with a passion, particularly Levski. So nobody really will object to Botev getting a new stadium(except Loko so they get one as well). Whereas if they announce 100s of millions of € from the state budget for finishing the Levski stadium the entire country will revolt. As for the political aspect of it - all clubs are politically tied more or less. There were recordings of the Loko Plovidv owner swearing "give me something and I will invest in Loko, not just for the others". The scheme is simple You get a football club, you get some government contracts for your companies which are sponsoring the club and then you chip a little bit of it for the club and more for yourself. Some clubs are actually directly owned by municipalities and funding is literally directly from the local taxes. I mean it's somewhat fine when it's local and all locals are fine with it. But a lot of people have this backwards commie mentality "the state has to do something and help". No - a club is the opposite of that. It's voluntary organization with members of that club. As the other commentator pointed out - we Levski fans, saw what happened to cska and we are fighting to stop it. Beroe(Olimpik Galata), Botev(Metalik Sopot), Loko(Velbazhd Kyustendil) are also rebranded village teams, but same as the stadiums - nobody cares really. It went away silently years ago. When it happens to the bigger teams it matters.

[@Schnipp08]

I'm scared the same will happen to Germany. I'm German. And not kidding at all.

[@he_football]

Bei 80 mio Menschen und tausende überprofesionelle Vereine und Ligen kann das meiner Meinung nach niemals passieren.

[@Schnipp08]

@@he_football Ich habe Angst, dass sie sich nicht für die WM 2026 qualifizieren werden.

[@he_football]

@@Schnipp08 Kann schon passieren, aber wenn Nagelsmann ein bisschen Stabilität und Teamgeaist ins Team bringt kann De wieder eine der top 5 Nationalmannschaften werden

[@he_football]

Und auch wenn das passieren sollte gibt es zu viel Qualität bei den u17 u19 etc damit das permanent wirf

[@istaranlaura4342]

The you spik German

[@iyinfinitiyi796]

Forgot to mention that Bulgarian nation is fastest disappearing in the world. Nevertheless, the football and the country do go hand in hand..............

[@he_football]

What dp you mean. Declining birthrate?

[@MihailParshin]

​@@he_footballA mix of low birthrate, a lot of immigration to West Europe or USA + very big chunk of old people.

[@he_football]

@@MihailParshin I think a lot of Eastern Europe is experiencing that at the moment

[@MihailParshin]

@@he_football Yes, but maybe in Bulgaria is a little bit more. Don't know exactly, just the statistics are always putting them with little more numbers than the rest.

[@istaranlaura4342]

Gut.viedio.mike.nou.die. Downfall.ouf.irsch. Football

[@EricOates15]

I Wish HITC Sevens Did His Own Version Of This Video

[@he_football]

I thought mine was pretty well donr

[@istaranlaura4342]

Football.in.Bulgarien. Is.bad

[@illyrianhylli192]

I feel bad ,cause Bulgaria 🇧🇬 was a good team ,but as every team every generation changes ,so new players need time to settle proper ,like Italy which didn’t qualify ,I saw them when they played Albania 🇦🇱 ,poor ,but I think that group will bro and become very good ,we wish them luck for world cup qualifiers,😊

[@YushaKozaki]

Levski signed an agreement with Eintracht, the same team whose Lazio's supporters always have problems with when they meet in Euro competitions?????????

[@adamgallacher5039]

Hail hail from another Scottish Celtic subscriber

[@he_football]

Thank you very much

[@jaylenbarnes2.079]

Great Video

[@he_football]

Thanks. Glad you liked it

[@stipe3124]

Interesting that we in Croatia have same or simillar problems as in Bulgaria but our Football for some reason did not fail like that, not yet. I remember time when playing against Bulgaria was hard, during Berbatov and Petrov(s) time, Bulgaria was respectfull team.

[@he_football]

I am very intrigued by that too. I am planning videos on all ex communist countries and their football so Croatia will feature one day here too

[@stipe3124]

@@he_football Maybe it is mentality or something!? But Bulgaria at one point also had mentality where they wanted to prove against big teams that they can beat them, maybe we are just lucky in Croatia that we have big football emigration in countries like Germany and Italy is close so many of our players learn how to play in big games, but other countries are in simillar situation for example Serbia. I guess maybe it is mix of Mediterranian competitive mentality and central Europe work habits, for this moment in history something is just as it should be in Croatian Football even if all problems mentioned in video about Bulgaria are also here (Mamić and Dinamo story for example)

[@he_football]

@@stipe3124 I still haven't figured out why some countries decline and others either become really great like Croatia or stay decent like Czechia or Poland

[@stipe3124]

@@he_football Maybe it is just a bit of luck! Or a good keeper during penalties 🤔😅

[@he_football]

@@stipe3124 Haha that always helps

[@viktorpanayotov5653]

Ludogorets: What I can say about Ludogorets is that, yes they have probably done shady things too. Yes, they aren't angels and they have probably bribed referees or done some match fixing at times. But even despite all that, I don't think Ludogorets dominates because of that. I think they dominate because Domuschiev knows how to run the team and how to make them successful. Ludogorets is clearly above other team in Bulgaria in terms of transfers, training conditions, professional working conditions and so on. So it's not their fault that all other teams SUCK. And they are what keeps this league's UEFA coefficient alive in the first place. If it wasn't for them, we would probably have just 1 spot for European qualification available instead of four. I don't really like Ludogorets, I'm not a fan and I admit they have done scummy things. But I can also acknowledge the things I just said about them. To me they are not the biggest evil in this league. Coaches: As with coaches for the younger formations, coaches for teams in the Bulgarian top flight tend to either be bad or just recycled. You see a lot of familiar faces every season. Why? Because of connections, favoritism but mostly because these recycled coaches are recycled for a reason. It's because they know how to shut up, say "yes boss" to everything and stay content with a shitty pay. Basically most coaches in this league are greedy yes-men who only care about earning their pay. Owners: You already touched upon this, but yes, owners in this league are for the most part criminals who only care about two things: A) Making behind the scenes illegal money B) Stroking their own egos by feeling like "the big boss man" No money/no stadiums: Sadly Bulgaria is a poor country and the financial state of a country reflects on sports too, especially football since it's the most popular sport. The poor financial and economic state in the country means most teams operate on a loss or just barely scrape by. Only Ludogorets operate on a net gain. Also because a lot of people in politics and football embezzle and steal money constantly, this leaves the conditions for football in a very bad state. Particularly because there are no proper stadiums and no proper training ground. While for example Steaua Stadium or Arena Nationala in Romania can be rented out for events to bring in extra money, this just can't be done in Bulgaria. And that's because stadiums here are in an awful condition and no other country would want to host anything at them. Fans: As I already touched upon with CSKA and Levski fans, football fans in Bulgaria tend to be very aggressive, selfish, demanding and all-around toxic for football. CSKA-Sofia's fans are a prime example. In-fact we had a match yesterday between CSKA-Sofia and CSKA 1948 for the final spot in the Conference League. And at around the 88th minute mark, the fans of CSKA-Sofia randomly stormed the pitch, started smashing and destroying everything, hitting people and just causing chaos. Not only did they just bring a massive penalty to their team but they are also super spoiled. They always demand this and that, yet they behave like criminals, hooligans and children. And speaking of children, that's another reason why live attendance has been going down and down for years now. Who would wanna take their children to a football match when their own safety can't be guaranteed with fans like these who only know how to hurt people and destroy things. And the most ironic thing is, CSKA-Sofia's fans often play the role of victim and try to act like everyone is against them. And even if that is true, WHY wouldn't everyone be against them when they act like this LOL. They just bring it on themselves and then wonder why. It's like a kid who causes mischief and then wonders why he gets yelled at and punished lol. If you want a video of this mayhem from yesterday, I can probably link you something. Just say the word. But bottom line is, this kind of behavior has no place on a football pitch. English fans are often not that well-behaved, but at the stadium they behave because they know that they will only bring their teams trouble if they do something. But this is also a problem cause by the Bulgarian Football Union. They don't do SHIT to stop this crap. They never punish teams properly. Bulgarian Football Union president: Sadly the election ended and Berbatov lost to Georgi Ivanov "Gonzo". Most speculate that Ivanov is a puppet leader installed by Mihaylov himself and I think that's very possible. Also Ivanov doesn't have a properly high-school education so him becoming president is honestly embarrassing, laughable and just sad. However, I will say that Berbatov may not be the saint he appears to be. There are some things he said and did that rubbed me the wrong way. For example, if Berbatov were to become president, he would need to act on the Litex becoming CSKA-Sofia situation. But when he was organizing his campaign, instead of calling team representatives to a neutral location ,he instead asked them to meet up at the Bulgarian Army stadium (the original CSKA's stadium). And to me this clearly showed that he has favoritism towards CSKA-Sofia and may not be the saint he tries to pass himself as, if he supports a fraudulent team like CSKA-Sofia. Compared to Romania: Unlike Romania, Bulgaria to me doesn't show any signs of improving its football in the next 5 to 10 years. There's barely any work being done on new stadiums. Supposedly CSKA-Sofia is gonna build one. They demolished theirs a month or so ago. But they still haven't started work on it and haven't even gotten an official license to start working on it yet. Although they claim they will get it but it's just a matter of time. Also I don't see any improvements being done to improve training environments or coaching staffs. The country hasn't really changed financially, it's still poor. In-fact it might just be poorer than before lol. Stoichkov still isn't lifting a finger to do anything useful for football. And most teams still continue to rely a lot on foreign free agents as opposed to developing talent. Sadly this is the transfer policy for most teams here. They get free agents, help them get some good games in to raise their stock and then sell them off for a profit. No need to say why this policy is AWFUL and doesn't promote growth within our football in any way. Romania on the other hand seems to rely a bit more on home-talent (although they still do use foreigners). They are building new stadiums. They are more financially stable. Hagi is trying to change football for the better. Overall, I see a brighter future for Romanian football than for Bulgarian football. How to fix football in Bulgaria: This is only my opinion, but in order to fix football here, without relying that much on money, here is what needs to happen. First off Stoichkov needs to wake up and actually start doing something for football. He is the only one who is respected and revered enough to do something even in the face of all the corruption and crime. Second, teams need to stop using so many foreigners and need to start using young talent more. And instead of wasting money on stupid stuff, they should use the big money to improve coaching staffs and training condition on every possible level. Get the best coaches you can, set up the best training conditions you can, give these young players all the tools needed to improve. This is not a quick fix and it will take time. We will be probably a bit more shit internationally for some time. But if given enough time, these young players will get better and once we have a good foundation and a good talent pool, we can start winning more, while also being able to sell players that had no money wasted on them, while also having new promising players coming up who were trained by the best possible coaches. So basically what I mean is, instead of investing in good players for Bulgarian standards like Ludogorets does, instead invest in the best possible coaches and training conditions. To me this is the only way it's gonna happen if we want to be good again without relying on money. Thanks for reading :P

[@he_football]

Thank you for your amazing comments. I wish I knew some of this before making my video. Stoichkov is the classic former footballer who likes the good life and is happy to be incompetent if that means he gets money and some power. That's the feeling I get from the stuff you wrote. As for the fans I find it insane that lots of ultras groups especially in Eastern Europe don't really seem to care about football anymore. Their teams and leagues are going further and further down and they only want to have a fight and destroy things. At this point those are just thugs pretending to be football fans.

[@viktorpanayotov5653]

@@he_football You pretty much nailed it. He just wants to have an easy life and make money effortlessly. He doesn't care about football anymore. At least not about improving it. As far as ultras groups go, sadly you are right. They tend to be filled with degenerates or just very self-conscious people who just want to have a place where they belong. They watch football because without it, they are empty inside, even if they don't actually love the game itself and just want to be part of something bigger than them. Anyways, you are welcome and if you ever decide to do a video on the two new "CSKA" teams or the FCSB/Steaua situation, I will be happy to assist and give you some contact info. I can write quite a lot about those two topics.

[@he_football]

@@viktorpanayotov5653 I will keep that in mind thank you very much

[@shawnmason5551]

Love the video, excellent work. I have rooted for Pirin since the early 90s.

[@he_football]

Thank you very much. I'm glad you enjoyed it

[@singoller3749]

Domuschiev is a part of the mafia as well.

[@he_football]

@@singoller3749 Researching this video I got the impression almost everyone in a leadership position was connected to the mafia

[@singoller3749]

@@he_football Sad but true. The future was Dimitar Berbatov. But by threats by the corrupt mafia football goverment, the football teams voted for the new puppet who took bobi Mihailov’s place.

[@he_football]

I saw that. Another blow for Bulgarian football

[@atp2404]

CSKA 1948 are not fan owned nor fan supported. Their owner is Tsvetomir Naydenov, oligarch and owner of betting company efbet, the main sponsor of the bulgarian league. CSKA 1948 was his attempt to capitalize on the bankruptcy of the original club. The club also has no fans. It plays it's home games in a village near Sofia and they usually attract less then 100 people. Heck they played in the 2023 Bulgarian cup final and only sold around 200 tickets. It was in Sofia. Also their "homegrown" players are mostly poached by the academys of Levski and CSKA when they are 16-17.

[@he_football]

@@atp2404 Thank you for correcting me

[@BGivka]

Thank you for this ! But alas, Berbatov was not elected..

[@he_football]

I totally forgot to check on the election. Who won?

[@belligol5783]

good explanation but you need more music and videos of matches with scores. watch balon for help on video creation.

[@he_football]

I need to up my production value but I don't have a whole team behind me