The fans of football club Sofia Levski had to go through a real four-day thriller after their team’s 1:0 defeat by CSKA on December 2. Unlike the result, the drama in blue ended well for the club’s fans, their favourite head coach Stanimir Stoilov and club’s executive director Nasko Sirakov kept their jobs. It all started just hours after the game with rivals CSKA. The loss had almost ended any hopes the “The Blues” had of defending the title as they dropped to fourth place in the league and now trail 11 points behind leaders CSKA.

Minutes after the final whistle, Levski’s owner Todor Batkov asked the entire management of the team to step down. As a result, on December 3, Stoilov and Sirakov handed in their resignations.

“Led by our loyalty and honesty to the club, we hereby hand our resignations to the managing board and personally to the club owner. For three years we have worked as a united team for the club’s success. We express a warm gratitude to the millions of fans for their unconditional love and support,” they said in an open letter. Both Stoilov and Sirakov are former Levski players and are considered legends by fans. The two of them are behind the most successful performance Levski ever had, when in 2006 the team entered the group stage of UEFA Champions League. It was the first Bulgarian club to achieve such a success and it brought Chelsea and Barcelona to Bulgaria. For this reason alone, Stoilov and Sirakov are praised by fans as club legends.

That was why after the resignations were announced the fans reacted immediately, issuing a threatening declaration to the boss Batkov: “If you, Mr Batkov, accept the resignations of Stoilov and Sirakov, you will face a war and there’s no way for you to win it.” The players also expressed support for Stoilov.

Stoilov quickly tried to stop the unrest with a statement: “Maybe we just didn’t understand the boss the right way. Yes, he asked us to quit but his main idea was to sit and talk to us in a calm way on December 5. I love this club too much so I resigned in the name of Levski. If we find unanimity over the team’s future, I could stay. This is my desire. I just want time to rebuild the team and an assurance that continuing my job is not dependent on a few bad results.”

On December 5, after Levski’s executive board held a meeting that lasted for more than two hours, Stoilov and Sirakov were offered the opportunity to stay and build a new team.