Bulgarian football is united only in very good and very bad moments. This was stated by the former president of the Bulgarian Football Union Valentin Mihov in the program "The Day Begins" on BNT. He commented on the ongoing uncertainty surrounding where the European qualifier between Bulgaria and Hungary will take place, recalling the days when he was in charge of BFU.
"When we talk about football, 30 years ago Bulgaria was united only one day - when we beat France. There was no conflict. We are united only in very good in very bad times. What is happening in the state is also reflected in football - I resigned when they made a trap for me. I am happy that Bulgaria became fourth in the world. You should ask Mr. Mihailov. I resigned when I had to, but then it turned out that I didn't have to. 14-15 years passed, I gave up, I resigned", he said regarding his period as the head of BFU.
Mihov was adamant that a mayor cannot make a decision concerning the holding of a match, referring to the new mayor of Plovdiv Kostadin Dimitrov regarding the meeting of the national team with the Hungarians, which will not be held at the Hristo Botev stadium. "Of course, the tension is high and getting even higher - a mayor cannot make such decisions. Let things become civilized by holding an electoral Congress. I have come to talk about Parc des Princes. Why everyone can understand football - 33 years of democracy we did not manage to build 10 stadiums, who is to blame? Managers are a rare phenomenon in Bulgaria. Bulgaria has only boasted of sports until now. Yesterday I saw a sambo champion, how they welcomed him with bagpipes - let's welcome like that an economist or a politician?".
"The state makes a strategy, everywhere in the world something similar is done. It starts with the stadiums. Who should manage the process? We need to prepare specialists and coaches. Many of the owners believed they knew football. I respect money, but let everyone know their role. I do not know the status of the Executive Committee. As the president of the League, I wanted us to administer the whole championship - to run the championship there. But it did not work. I had a lot of arguments with Mr. Slavkov, I wouldn't say conflicts".
The only solution to the problems is the holding of an electoral Congress, Mihov believes. "The only way out of this situation is by holding a Congress. A big attack against the president, there must be reasons for it. I can criticize too. I became the president of football by accident thanks to the great veterans. I went to a Congress to call the shots and that's how I became president. It is not scary to prepare a person - like preparing a strategy for football. It is not scary to prepare a successor, this is difficult to perceive in Bulgaria. Which prime minister has prepared a deputy?", he added regarding the statement of Borislav Mihailov, who revealed that he is preparing his successors for the presidency of BFU.
The former president of BFU expressed the opinion that there are talented people, but he questioned how many of them can take on the management of Bulgarian football. "I am from a different generation - there are talented people. But how much can they manage. I always relate things to politics. The quality of every single person when you are a manager somewhere. You start a term and make 2-3 strategies for that period. As long as there is competition, it breeds ideas. In football, there are no characters for whom 10,000 people go to the stadiums - there are no personalities like Sasho Kostov, Gundi, Dimitar Yakimov. We don't have trained coaches to prepare children for the professional game," he concluded and added in the end:
"It's been a wonderful 30 years, it's gone very quickly - let's not wait so many years again for something good to happen in football," going back to the historic success over France on 17 November 1993 in Paris. With this victory Bulgaria qualified for the World Cup in the USA, where we subsequently became fourth in the world. /BGNES
