Bulgaria's Former IOC Member: I Despise Borisov Gov

“I will destroy whatever I can. When you do something good, nobody pays attention. When you do something bad, you are on the first pages of the newspapers," Slavkov told Trud daily. Photo by BGNES

Ivan Slavkov, Bulgaria’s former International Olympic Committee member, who was suspended six years ago following BBC allegations of corruption, has openly expressed his contempt for the country’s current center-right government.

"Prime Minister Boyko Borisov was the only one to arrest Kim Jung-hoon in his capacity of Interior Ministry Chief Secretary,” Ivan Slavkov said in an interview for Trud daily.

“Kim was arrested by the Bulgarian police only to be released later and to sue Bulgaria. Three years of his and my life and the lives of many people around us were destroyed.”

Slavkov referred to the arrest of South Korean national Kim Jung-hoon, son of the then International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Kim Un-yong.

The hunt for him began in 2000 on suspicion that he had produced counterfeit papers in the US and he was arrested three years later in Bulgaria's capital Sofia right after he entered the country, as Bulgarian police were earlier instructed by the Interpol.

Ivan Slavkov, President of the Bulgarian Football Union at that time, repeatedly said that there was no evidence that the detainee committed any crimes.

“I have a personal conflict with Boyko Borisov and hold deep disrespect for this government,” Slavkov says in the interview for Trud daily seven years later.

In his words the way the government rules can be compared to the tests of Olga Lepeshinskaya, a Proletarian scientist, who wanted to create life out of a broken egg.

He recommends that the prime minister call one of Moscow mayor deputies, who will “put this country in order for one month.”

Asked about his plans, Slavkov says:

“I will destroy whatever I can. When you do something good, nobody pays attention. When you do something bad, you are on the first pages of the newspapers.”

The 70-year-old Slavkov is former head of Bulgaria's national Olympic committee and soccer federation.

His father-in-law, Todor Zhivkov, was toppled as the country's communist leader in late 1989. In 1996, Slavkov was acquitted of a charge of embezzling money from the Bulgarian Olympic Committee.

In May 2000, Slavkov was cleared by the IOC ethics commission of charges he was involved in a scheme to sell votes in the campaign for the 2004 Olympics, which went to Athens.

Four years later he was suspended by IOC after being secretly filmed by an undercover BBC television crew discussing how votes could be bought in the campaign to host the 2012 Summer Games.

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