Litex thrown out of Bulgarian league for walking off pitch

SOFIA (Reuters) – Litex Lovech have been expelled from the Bulgarian league after the players walked off the pitch in protest at refereeing decisions in Saturday’s match against Levski Sofia, the Bulgarian Football Union (BFU) said.

“It was the only possible decision according to (the BFU’s) disciplinary rules,” the union’s disciplinary commission chairman Yuri Kuchev told reporters on Wednesday.

Litex were down to 10 men when referee Georgi Yordanov sent off a second player and awarded Levski a penalty near the end of the first half, prompting the visitors’ sporting manager Stoycho Stoilov to order the players off the field.

Litex, one of most successful clubs in Bulgaria in the last two decades after winning four league titles and four domestic cups since 1998, were also fined 20,000 levs ($11,167).

They can appeal against the BFU decision within seven days.

Litex president Trifon Popov was fined 15,000 levs after admitting that he ordered Stoilov to instruct the players to leave the pitch.

Kuchev said that the BFU had yet to decide if Levski would be awarded a 3-0 win as is widely expected.

After the highly-charged game on Saturday, Litex said they wanted foreign referees to run their matches against the Sofia-based side in future while champions Ludogorets threatened to quit the league because they said referees favoured their closest title rivals.

“We’ll probably quit the championship if such precedents in favour of Levski continue,” Ludogorets owner Kiril Domuschiev said. “Is this the way they want to win the title?”

Ludogorets top the standings with 38 points from 20 matches followed by Levski who have 35 from 19.

It was not immediately clear if Litex would be allowed to continue in the Bulgarian Cup, where they have reached the semi-finals.

Levski Sofia have been ordered to play their next home match behind closed doors following crowd trouble in their two matches against Litex.

($1 = 1.7909 leva)

(Reporting by Angel Krasimirov; Editing by Ken Ferris and Clare Fallon)