Bulgaria Prosecutor Summons Levski Football Club Owner

The Sofia City Prosecutor's Office is questionning the owner of the Bulgarian Football Club “Levski,” Todor Batkov. Photo by BGNES

The owner of the Bulgarian Football Club “Levski,” Todor Batkov, has been interrogated by a Prosecutor in connection with the transfer scandal involving four of his players.

Batkov has been summoned after he came on TV to give insight about the fake transfer of players Zhivko Milanov, Ze Soares, Darko Tasevski, and Usef Rabeh to the Russian champion Rubin (Kazan).

The Sofia City Prosecutor, Nikolay Kokinov, informs that his office initiated an investigation after hearing from the media that an international fraud scheme and gambling interests could be behind the fake transfer.

The Bulgarian authorities have already requested the assistance of international police services in order to discover the people behind the scandal.

In addition, the prosecution is investigating signals from the National Revenue Agency (NRA) that most football players in Bulgaria are insured by their employer based on the minimum wage and do not pay taxes according to their real income.

About a week ago, two people, who presented themselves as agents of FC Rubin met with Batkov, and faxes with offers for the four players were received in the Levski's offices. The four players were sent on a plane to Moscow only to discover the Rubin FC management was not aware of any transfer deal with “Levski.”

The fraudulent transfers happened in the eve of the derby between “Levski” and their all-time rival “CSKA” in which, without four of his players, “Levski” suffered a crushing loss.

After the scandal broke, Batkov told Bulgarian media that he received threatening phone calls from Russia asking him to stop digging in the story.

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