Football news - Bulgaria captain Ivelin Popov 'embarrassed' by own fans' racism

The Euro 2020 qualifier in Sofia had to be halted twice as abuse was thrown at black England players, most notably Tyrone Mings, who was making his international debut.

Bulgaria have subsequently been charged by UEFA over the incidents, with the head of the Bulgarian Football Union Borislav Mihaylov forced to step down under political pressure.

And the captain has now joined his Prime Minister in revealing his disgust at how his nation's fans had behaved.

"Of course I feel embarrassed," said Popov, an 88-cap midfielder.

"We are 11 v 11, it doesn’t matter your colour, it’s no problem, we are all the same, we are one very big family in football, everybody and only we, if we are together, can we stop these bad things.

"It was important that I spoke like this because it’s a very big problem for everybody, for our federation, for England and if they said more bad words, even one more time, then maybe they would finish the game.

"We would have such a big punishment and this is no good for Bulgarian football because if some other players want to come here, they hear what is said and how they speak bad, then this is no good for everybody.

"This is normal because the first half was 4-0, they were very angry and were saying to me: ‘don’t speak to us.’ But when you start to speak to them, afterwards they understand. I think in the second half was better.

"I don’t want it to be like this, it’s not good for us, the federation and our country. How do I feel? I don’t feel good because we didn’t play well, we lost 6-0 and also this what happened was terrible.

"It must stop. In this country, we have a team like Ludogorets, who have players from every country, I never listened (heard) this sort of problem in the Bulgarian championship and I don’t know why they made like this because many fans are fans and supporters of English football.

"There are fan clubs from Chelsea , Liverpool , Manchester, it’s incredible and I don’t know why they made this. For me, it’s incredible, a surprise.

"In every big city they have fan clubs, like in Sofia, they have several fan clubs for every big club."