Wikileaks Cable Exposes Bulgarian League's Links with Mafia Bosses

Views on BG | January 4, 2011, Tuesday // 11:51|  views

Todor Batkov (pictured), owner of the popular Sofia team Levski FC, has been described in the diplomatic cables, revealed by WikiLeaks, as “the proxy and front-man for the infamous Russian-Israeli businessman Michael Cherney, aka "Mikhail Chorny." Photo

By Global Times, China's English-language newspaper

Some of Bulgaria's most popular clubs have ties with mafia bosses, who use them to launder money, according to a US diplomatic document revealed by whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.

"Bulgarian clubs are widely believed to be directly or indirectly controlled by organized crime figures who use their teams as a way to legitimize themselves, launder money, or make a fast buck," a January 2010 cable from the US embassy in Sofia to Washington noted.

Details of the cable, which handed Bulgarian soccer "a red card for corruption," were published Monday on the website of the Spanish daily El Pais.

"Nearly all of the teams are owned or have been connected to organized crime figures," the cable's author, current US deputy chief of mission to Sofia Susan Sutton, wrote.

A "sampling of the most well-known connections" compiled by Sutton included some of Bulgaria's most popular first league clubs, such as Levski Sofia, CSKA Sofia, Litex Lovech, Slavia Sofia, Cherno more Varna, Lokomotiv Sofia and Lokomotiv Plovdiv.

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Tags: Susan, Sutton, Susan Sutton, judicial reform, government, Bulgarian, Bulgaria, Commission, European Commission, McEldowney, Wikileaks, report, soccer, football, US Embassy, sofia, El Pais, match, match fixing

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