Here is the thread that we, Bulgarian users, will post all the scandals and strange things that happen with volleyball in our country. These scandals are dictated by the Bulgarian Volleyball Federation and mainly by the man in the picture - Dancho Lazarov, also known as the Engineer.
The thread's purpose is not to complain about something and it can't take Lazarov off power. You can consider its purpose more as for entertainment and pure information. We will tend to be 100% objective to get you to know the facts and to be closer to the truth. I can't write about all of the scandals because I'm not competent about all of them. But when some of the Bulgarian users describes one event, I will copy it in this first post. The scandals that first come into my mind are:
- the affair with Nikolay Ivanov and his unwillingness to play for NT
- the scandals about Matey Kaziyski's transfers from Slavia and from Dinamo Moscow.
- 2008 Olympics and Plamen Konstantinov's doping scandal.
- Dragutin Baltic's sex sms-es.
- 2012 women's national championships semifinals.
- 2012 men's national championship finals.
- Equipment scandals about Errea and Asics
- Radostin Stoychev's dismissal
- not keeping players like Hristo Zlatanov, Ventseslav Simeonov and Todor Baev play for Bulgarian NT
- the dismissal of Silvano Prandi after WCH 2010 in Italy
- the affair with the slavery contracts signed between the federation and the players who always need to go to court to break the contract and go abroad, for example.
- the annual scandals in the junior/youth club teams during national championships; quite often teams from Sofia (not only though) get more advantages than some others.
- not registering Kaziyski for ECH 2003 in Germany which resulted in a 3:0 loss vs. Serbia and Montenegro
- the money from the World League don't reach the players
- the relationship between Dancho Lazarov and his mistress - the NT player Lyubka Deburlieva - and the scandals surrounding her
There are probably more to add but I can't think of them right now. Feel free to add anything that you know about.
I'll start with this:
Volleyball isn't a religion.
Bulgarian women's volleyball national championship. Semifinal. The series is between CSKA Volley and Levski Sikonko. The series is tied 1-1 and on Sunday, 11 March 2012 the third decisive match is to be played in the Sikonko Hall.
The Volleyball Federation announces earlier in the day that the decisive match is postponed and will be played on Tuesday, 13 March, because there has been a religious meeting at the exact time and place when and where the third match had to be played on schedule. It wasn't understood why the Federation found out so late about this religious meeting of the Jehovah's Witnesses and hadn't changed the schedule earlier. It was unknown why the Jehovah's Witnesses had advantage to use the hall over the volleyball federation and the teams.
Levski's starting setter Petya Barakova was injured and couldn't play the decisive game on Sunday, 11 March. She could recover until Tuesday and could play on 13 March. She played in the first match in which Levski won. She didn't play in the second match in which Levski lost.
A reporter from the television channel BTV Petar Bakurdzhiev went to Levski Sikonko's hall on Sunday, 11 March at 17:40 when the Jehovah's Witnesses were expected to have a meeting. The match between Levski and CSKA had to start by the earlier schedule at 18:00. What Bakurdzhiev saw and showed through the cameras of BTV to all the viewers was that there was no meeting by the Jehovah's Witnesses. Instead, the male volleyball team of Levski had a practice session. So the hall was free and there was no problem to play the third decisive match between the women's teams of CSKA and Levski. Eventually, the setter Barakova did not recover from injury and Levski did not appear on Tuesday, 13 March . CSKA advanced to the finals automatically.
The owner of Levski Volley is the President of the Bulgarian Volleyball Federation Dancho Lazarov.