Bulgaria's CSKA, Levski Have Last Chance to Repay Debts, Secure Licences

Bulgaria's two most popular football clubs – CSKA and Levski have to repay their debts on Tuesday in order to be granted licences to secure their participation in the European tournaments and the domestic A Group.

The deadline for the two clubs to fulfill their obligations, amounting to BGN 800 000 for CSKA and BGN 805 000 for Levski, expires on Tuesday, daily Dnevnik reports.

Both teams called on their fans to express their support by making donations and purchasing shares, actions which for the moment have proven insufficient..

The problems at CSKA intensified after the main investors – the Mandzhukovi family and Iliyan Indzhov, announced that they withdraw from the club due to their mistrust in the majority owner.

They justified their decision with the refusal of CSKA president Aleksandar Tomov to provide documents on the actual financial situation of the club.

Immediately following the refusal of Mandzhukovi and Indzhov, Tomov announced that he has a backup plan, but so far no details on it have been revealed.

Tomov called on the fans to purchase shares in order to prevent the businessmen from becoming majority owners.

According to unconfirmed reports, the fans have managed to gather around BGN 240 000 in several days.

Tomov met with the owner of Litex football club Grisha Ganchev on Monday, probably asking for the businessman's financial help.

It is unlikely that the two discussed the probable sale of CSKA to Ganchev, as legislation provides that the businessman can not have ownership in more than one club.

Levski relies on the “Levski is yours” campaign, which promotes the sale of shares of the majority owner Todor Batkov to the fans.

Levski suffered an additional blow due to its poor performance in the domestic A Group, where the team did not manage to qualify among the top six teams for the play-off stage of the tournament.

Thus, the team incurred financial losses from the sale of tickets and funds from sponsors, losing revenues amounting to BGN 800 000.

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