Little Italy is present in the Bulgarian First Division

By: Francesco | October 2nd, 2009

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This was an interesting story I came across today. Apparently there is a “Little Italy” of sorts in the Bulgarian First Division (official named the Bulgarian TBI A Professional Football Group, which is ridiculous), as Bulgarian club PFC Botev Plovdiv is owned by an Italian owner, has an Italian chairman, an Italian-Congolese sporting director, an Italian manager, and a roster that contains 10 Italian players (soon to be 11). More on this curious story after the jump.

It was hard to find information besides using Wikipedia since I discovered that navigating Bulgarian websites is rather difficult and that my knowledge of the Bulgarian language is limited to footballer’s names, like Hristo Stoichkov, Dimitar Berbatov, Martin Petrov, etc. However I found this article on the story that had some pictures. I’m assuming the overweight guy with the scarf and angry looking guy on the couch are the owner Francesco Salerno and chairman Marco Ornela, and the other man sitting alone on the couch is the Italo-Congolese sporting director Malu Mpasinkatu.

The club aren’t the most storied club in Bulgaria, as they last won the championship in 1967 and haven’t won anything since 1989. They made a couple of UEFA Cup appearances in the mid-90’s. They finished in 13th place last season. I can’t seem to find when this Italian guy Francesco Salerno bought the club, but it looked like he wanted to create an Italian colony in the Bulgarian first division.

If you take a glance at the current squad, as I mentioned before there are 10 Italian players. All of these players are basically Serie C players (with some making an appearance in Serie B) that decided to try this new adventure and make it big in Bulgaria. I actually recognize a few names from playing Football Manager on my PC and taking charge of squads in the lower Italian divisions. They are also in talks with players Davide Morello (who last played goalkeeper for Pisa) and defender Natale Gonnella (played with Hellas Verona in Serie A back in the day) to come and join the Italian colony. So basically, they can field an all-Italian starting XI.

However, it doesn’t seem to be working out so far, as Botev Plovdiv have lost their first 7 games of the season. Maybe the Italians are getting homesick?