Bulgaria captain Ivelin Popov has condemned the actions of his country’s supporters after England players were racially abused during their 6-0 win in Sofia on Monday night.
Raheem Sterling, Marcus Rashford and debutant Tyrone Mings all suffered abhorrent racist abuse during the game from Bulgaria fans leading to Croatian referee Ivan Bebek twice halting proceedings in line with UEFA’s three-step protocol.
Twice in the first-half, the referee stopped the game after the shocking scenes from the stands with a PA announcement made urging supporters to behave themselves. Half-time footage from ITV showed fans making monkey gestures and Nazi salutes.
During the interval, Popov went over to a section of the fans in an attempt to get them to stop the sickening chants towards England’s players with Rashford praising the Bulgarian skipper for his courage in a Tweet after the game.
Explaining what he said to supporters, Popov told the Daily Mail: ‘It was important that I spoke because it’s a very big problem for everybody, for our federation, for England. If they had said more bad words, even one more time, then maybe they would have stopped the game.
‘We could have such a big punishment – and this is not good for Bulgarian football, because if players want to come here, they hear what is said and how people speak bad, and that is not good for anybody.’
When asked whether England’s players had asked him to confront the fans, Popov replied: ‘No. We are 11 v 11, it doesn’t matter your colour, it’s no problem, we are all the same, we are one big family in football.
‘Only we, if we are together, can we stop these bad things. I don’t want it to be like this, it’s not good for our country. I don’t feel good because we didn’t play well, we lost 6-0 – and what happened was terrible.
‘It must stop. In this country, we have a team like Ludogorets, who have players from every country. I never heard this sort of problem in the Bulgarian championship and I don’t know why they did this, because many fans are supporters of English football.
‘The fans were angry. We were 4-0 down at half time, they were very angry and were saying to me: ‘don’t speak to us.’ But when you start to speak to them, they understand. I think in the second half it was better.’
Bulgarian Football Union president Borislav Mihaylov resigned from his post on Tuesday following calls from the country’s prime minister Boyko Borissov that he step aside in the wake of the shameful scenes in Sofia.
UEFA have also initiated disciplinary proceedings against Bulgaria, charging them with ‘racist behaviour’ including chants and Nazi salutes, throwing of objects, disruption of a national anthem and showing replays on a giant screen.
