The Ministry of Youth and Sports carried out an urgent inspection of the documentation on the licensing of the Bulgarian Football Union today, given the huge public interest in the subject. This was announced by the press center of the Ministry of Youth and Sports.
The results showed that on 23.01.2020, by order of the then Minister Krasen Kralev, an indefinite license was issued to the BFS. In chronological order, the established facts are the following:
28.10.2019 – Minister Krasen Kralev issued an order appointing an inspection of the BFS financing contracts for the period 2015 – 2018. The order does not specify a deadline for the inspection.
01/20/2020 – The order is amended to change the composition of examiners.
06.03.2020 – A report has been prepared on the verification of the financing of the FSB for the period 2015 – 2018. Data from the verification of 11 contracts for a total of BGN 5,642,000 is disclosed.
04/09/2020 – An addendum has been provided to this report, from which it is clear that the BFS should reimburse BGN 142,766 on account of MMC, since the amount is not recognized as appropriately spent under one of the contracts.
04/09/2020 – MMC sends a letter to Mihail Kasabov, representative of the BFS. The letter gives a 7-day deadline for refunding the amount of BGN 142,766 to the MMC account. In case of non-fulfilment of the obligations within the specified period, the MMC states that it will file a legal action for their recovery.
11.06.2020 – With a report of Minister Kralev, it is proposed to file a claim. As a result, a lawsuit was filed against the BFS.
05/17/2023 – In this case, Vesela Lecheva, in her capacity as Minister of Youth and Sports, concluded an out-of-court settlement, according to which the BFS agreed to reimburse BGN 71,383 and the legal proceedings against the union were terminated.
The basis for the claim of the MMC is a contract between the MMC, represented by the then minister Krasen Kralev, and the BFS, dated 12.02.2015, by which the BFS was granted BGN 818,000 for the organization and holding of a European championship for juniors up to 17 years of age. The project on the basis of which this contract was concluded has disappeared from the ICC and cannot be found. The amount was transferred in full with one payment order on February 19, 2015. Initially, the project was declared completed without any objections.
The due amount of BGN 142,766 was established 5 years after the implementation of the project worth BGN 818,000.
The chronology shows that the BFS license was issued on 23.01.2020 within the framework of the ongoing inspection, which directly affects one of the conditions for acquiring a license – under Art. 20, item 3 of the Federal Tax Service – that the federation has no arrears to the MMC.
At the time of disclosure of these obligations at the end of the inspection in April 2020, the BFS already has a regular license. In this sense, the issuance of the license was accelerated before any circumstances were disclosed that would prevent its issuance.
A lawsuit was then filed, delaying possible investigations of wrongdoing for years. This circumstance for revoking the license was valid until the conclusion of a court settlement between the BFS and the MMC during the time of Minister Vesela Lecheva.
