Bulgaria appoints new leadership for Sports Totalizator

The new caretaker minister for youth and sports has relieved the previous board of its duties and assigned a new team.

Bulgaria.- Vesela Lecheva, Bulgaria’s new caretaker minister for youth and sports, has named a new executive director and board for the country’s Sports Totalizator, the state-owned lottery and betting operator. Lecheva has removed the previous leadership of the monopoly, which operates the Toto BG brand.

Lecheva has appointed Angel Angelov as executive director of the operator. Angelov is reported to have a master’s degree in financial control and managerial experience in corporate finance, business administration, governance structures and risk management. The changes have been filed with the Registry Agency.

The ministry said in its press release that the sports lottery is a basic pillar of sports financing and needed to be managed professionally. It said it expected to see an increase in revenue and streamlining and full transparency in spending as conditions for the operator’s monopoly. Questionable contracts and actions were given as reasons for the change.

However, it’s noteworthy that the Bulgarian government reportedly plans to press on with the planned privatisation of the Bulgarian Sports Totalizator along with five other major public bodies. The body would become a joint-stock enterprise.

The decision is likely to prove controversial because funds would no longer be directly deducted by the Sports Ministry to fund sports in schools, something that has been one of the objectives of the state-run body since it was founded in 1957. It transferred around BGN 42m (€21.5m) to the ministry last year and paid a similar amount to the state in licensing fees.

Lecheva has also replaced the leadership of the National Sports Training Facilities EAD, choosing the lawyer and economist Svetoslav Tusinov as executive director. He was previously legal advisor.