The former owner of Levski Todor Batkov spoke in detail in the podcast of “Kod Sport“ about the Kazan Affair. On September 20, 2009, the then blue players Zhivko Milanov, Youssef Rabeh, Darko Tasevski and Ze Soares left for Moscow after a fax from Rubin Kazan, which allegedly wanted to buy them as a package. This happened on the eve of the eternal derby with CSKA, lost 0:2. It turns out that the box is in vain, after the “offer“ is a fake. Levski was played – his aces do not take part in the match and obviously their absence is key, and a serious amount of transfers is not coming in.
„I know who concocted this trick for me. But I have no part in it. This is an Armenian, a Russian citizen, part of organized Russian crime. I forgot his name. It is not Arthur just in case. He is involved in illegal bets, bookmakers, etc. And he was invited to Bulgaria by our “players“ in this business. When our opponent hosted him - the owners, from “Titan“ people… He is protected by one of the leaders of Bulgarian organized crime. I can't tell you the names, but everything is known. He was guarded by the head of the fight against gambling in the GDBOP, a high-level meeting in the BFU and with one of the international judges who were active at the time. All this was clarified, with names, people, etc.
At the request of colleagues, who for some reason had decided that I had bought the match in 2009, when we became champions, which is absolute nonsense - I have never bought matches in my life... they ordered me, and it was a very well-crafted story. Back in July, there was an inquiry from Rubin Kazan to a manager, which I did not pay attention to. In fact, there is an official letter from them, I received a phone call from the president of Rubin Kazan, whom I did not know. That Rubin had appeared on the horizon at that time, I knew the other presidents. He introduced himself “Colleague, I am the president... so, so, so...“
I bought them tickets, business class, the Russian embassy issued them visas from today to today. They met them in Moscow with S-class Mercedes, I sent Galya and Bazhdekov along with the 4 football players. They put them up at the “Sheraton“. The first hints of doubt appeared during the medical examinations – like with the school paramedics. Then I underestimated the situation, because this happened on Saturday afternoon and I could have organized Sunday morning for them to come home and beat CSKA. I didn't do it, a fact.
The next day you know what happened. I felt it, I couldn't catch it on my own. I took off on Sunday on an Aeroflot flight, 1 a.m., accompanied by this former policeman, servile, with a bow – on one side is the organizer of the fixed matches, on the other the one who has to fight. You know his name. I went crazy, immediately went to Moscow and said “What are you doing?“.
Then I met the KGB general Gusev. And after two weeks the picture became clear – they showed me a recording in which he confessed to absolutely everything. He was found in Krasnodar, Stavropol, a detention group took him away, officially. I said “Give him to me“, they put out our “red bulletins“ for extradition. They told me “A Russian citizen has not been extradited“. I had “prepared“ for him in Armenia too – if he had gone there, the Armenians would have handed him over to us.
“What are we doing?“ – “It's none of your business, there's no one &ndquo; no problem“. He didn't show up again, they said “We'll give you a gift, be careful“. And two weeks later, a Belarusian sports website released an audio recording of a phone conversation between the coach of Dinamo Minsk, a former Roma player, and the star of the Italian team – Totti. In which recording, the Russian tells him “There are some people, you're about to play a match with CSKA, they'll come to get to know each other, etc.“
It was detected by the Belarusian services or I don't know what services, and it was released publicly, but ours didn't do anything. Filth.
In terms of sports, the elimination from BATE Borisov hurt me the most and, of course, that disgrace with Slavia in 2013, when Levski was going to return very quickly to where it belongs. And Kiril Domuschiev would have given back a little”, said Batkov.