"Krasimir Balakov has insisted English football has more of a problem with racism than Bulgaria despite the Euro 2020 qualifier on Monday night being held in a partially closed stadium. Uefa imposed sanctions after incidents during Bulgaria’s matches against Kosovo and the Czech Republic in June."
"In response last week the Bulgarian football union president, Boris Mihaylov, urged Uefa to take action against England, and Balakov – a member of the celebrated side which reached the semi-finals of the 1994 World Cup – was similarly dismissive about the potential for any issues.
“
What I can say is that I don’t think we have a problem ,” he said. “In the Bulgarian championship, we have a lot of players of different ethnicities and skin colour. I don’t think we have as big a problem like, for example, England do. I would like to focus on football because at the end of the day
we are all civilised Europeans and we are all working for this sport. That is all that matters.”
Asked to elaborate on his comments about England, Balakov said: “What I meant was that in the Bulgarian championship we’ve not had such problems. While there have been incidents in various levels of English football involving racism, which I consider something normal because it’s a big country with a very diverse population. But we don’t have this problem in Bulgaria, I can assure you of that.”"
Bulgaria’s Krasimir Balakov says English game has more of an issue with racism