Bulgaria's Former IOC Member: PM Borisov Is Simpleton

“I have a personal conflict with Boyko Borisov and hold deep disrespect for this government,” Ivan Slavkov said in an interview for Darik Radio. Photo by Sofia Photo Agency

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.

“Boyko Borisov is a strong man because he has no knowledge and no values. This can be very useful sometimes,” Ivan Slavkov said in an interview for Darik radio, adding that he has a personal conflict with the prime minister.

"Borisov was the only one to arrest Kim Jung-hoon in his capacity of Interior Ministry Chief Secretary. 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, ” said Slavkov, who recently published his memoirs.

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 suspicions that he had produced counterfeit papers in the US and 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 said in the interview for Darik radio.

Asked about the welcome onslaught on corruption that the present government has undertaken, raising fears of a police state, Slavkov said:

“We have now a police state. What we had before (prior to the collapse of the communist regime in 1989) was a state of the rule of law.... I can see no similarities between the two systems and that's unfortunate.”

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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