Bulgaria manager Krasimir Balakov quits amid fallout from racist abuse of England team

Quit: Krasimir Balakov
Getty Images
Jamie Gardner18 October 2019

Bulgaria head coach Krasimir Balakov has resigned amid the fallout to Monday evening's racist abuse aimed at the England team.

The 53-year-old was in charge of the team in the 6-0 defeat to England in Sofia on Monday night which was marred by racist chanting and Nazi salutes from home supporters.

The Bulgarian Football Union (BFU) executive committee held a press conference on Friday afternoon where Balakov, along with the entire committee, had tendered their resignations.​ BFU confirmed the news shortly afterwards.

Balakov claimed he could not hear any of the racist abuse directed at England's black players during the match.

Step one of Uefa's anti-racism protocol was activated just before the half-hour mark, with the referee asking for a public address announcement to be made ordering the abuse to stop. However, it continued throughout the remainder of the match.

Balakov said on Monday night: "I was concentrated on the game. I didn't actually hear anything but I just talked to the English press downstairs and I told them that if this is proven to be true, then we have to be ashamed and we have to apologise for it.

"But, once again, first it has to be proven to be true."

He later issued a statement making a "sincere apology" to the England team and anyone else offended by the racist abuse.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in