You Must Resign, But We Don’t Accept Your Resignation

By: chris | December 5th, 2007

Bulgarian powerhouse Levski Sofia have had a tough and mentally exhausting week. They lost their derby to Sofia rival CSKA on Monday by a score of one to nil, which anybody will tell you is bad enough in itself, but also created an 11 point chasm between the rivals at the top of the table, with Levski only in 4th place – and all in the top 4 are from, yes, Sofia (powerful footballing city, that Sofia). Then, due to the bitter and overwhelming disappointment of the loss, the entire coaching staff, including head gouda Stanimir Stoilav (yes, that’s him to the left), and CEO quit en masse, which really didn’t sit well with anyone besides the instigator. The now unemployed claiming they had been pushed out the door by owner Todor Batkov – which is pretty hard to believe as I’ve never heard of owners having an unjustifiably itchy trigger finger. Never. (Especially not in, oh randomly off the top of my head, Sicily.)

Two days later they’re being reinstated to the club to lead a Levski revolution as they move into a new, modern stadium in 2009. Right. So lose one game and you’re fired, but when you come back you’re good for at least a few more years.

‘Levski’s future is connected to the sporting staff who achieved so much in recent years,’ the club’s financial director Konstantin Bazhdekov told reporters.

‘I’m optimistic that things will get better and they’ll stay at the club.

‘I think that all this happened because of all the emotion surrounding our last defeat.’

But here’s the best part. It’s not that they were asked to come back, it’s that their resignations were rejected. Yes, rejected. Despite the presence of a supervisory board, isn’t the ultimate decision down to the guy putting his signature on the checks, which is the owner? The same guy who asked for their resignations in the first place. Flip-flopping which must give John Kerry chills up and down his spine.