Bulgarian Match Fixing

Nine Lokomotiv Sofia Players Sacked Over Match Fixing Fears

A fortnight after the Bulgarian Football Union announced a reduction of 16 teams to 14 teams in order to improve standards, nine Lokomotiv Sofia players have been sacked in conjunction to a match fixing scandal.

If referee, Adrian Petrov, was not expecting a pitch invasion Thursday night, he certainly wasn’t expecting threats to abandon the match moments before the full time whistle. Three men invaded the pitch and threatened Adrian Petrov’s life. His assistant was assaulted and you could hardly blame Petrov for wanting to call the match to a close.

It's no joke

Surprisingly, this occurred in a junior championship match. In Bulgaria many junior championship matches appear on betting slips in the bookies. The Bulgarian Football Union have called for a thorough investigation and some parties have requested for all junior championship matches to be suspended indefinitely.

Lokomotiv Sofia president, Nikolay Gigov, described the behaviour as unacceptable and it was he who sacked the nine members of the playing staff without revealing their identities.

At the time the three men ran onto the pitch, Lokomotiv had just converted a penalty to make the score 4 – 3 and if nine got sacked, you’d hope the penalty scorer wouldn’t be one. It shall be interesting to see how this fiasco progresses and what the future holds for the integrity of Bulgarian football.

The Bulgarian Football Union want to reduce their topflight from 16 teams down to 14, but if things progress badly it might be unlucky for some and 13.