Levski Sofia and Botev Plovdiv have been ordered to play their next home matches behind closed doors after hooliganism marred their league match on Saturday, the Bulgarian Football Union (BFU) said. The punishment, handed down by the BFU's disciplinary commission, will be in effect for Levski's game against Litex Lovech in the Bulgarian Cup's quarter-finals on Wednesday and Botev's league match against Cherno More Varna on April 6.
The Canaries, as Botev are known in the Balkan country, were also fined 10,000 levs ($6,700) and Levski were given a fine of 7,000 levs for the incidents, which led to several arrests and resulted in 11 policemen being injured. Hundreds of Botev and Levski supporters clashed with riot police during Botev's 2-0 win in front of a full house at Plovdiv's Hristo Botev stadium with one of the policemen suffering a broken leg.
The match was interrupted for a few minutes in the first half after fans fought with each other and threw a large number of flares, fireworks and stones. Botev announced they would appeal against the sanction with their sporting director Alexander Alexandrov saying "it's not fair for the club to suffer because of 50-100 people". Levski are second in the standings with 40 points from 17 games, two points behind Ludogorets. Europa League hopefuls Botev are fifth on 32.
Violence inside and outside stadiums has plagued Bulgarian football this season, endangering the safety of players and fans. In August, first division club Minyor Pernik was given a three-match stadium ban following crowd trouble during their league match.
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