CSKA Sofia coach steps down

SOFIA (AFP) – CSKA Sofia coach Pavel Dotchev resigned on Monday after just three months in the job and three days before a Europa League playoff meeting with Welsh minnows New Saints FC, his club said.

“Pavel Dotchev is no longer coach of CSKA. The name of his successor will be announced later,” CSKA said in a statement.

CSKA, in financial meltdown, have regularly chopped and changed coaches since 2007 and Dotchev, brought in from German second division side Paderborn, only arrived on May 13.

But after one point from their three opening matches the club, languishing in the bottom four, decided he had to go.

Dotchev said he had come up against “many obstacles” and hinted at problems with the “mentality” of both players and the club’s ownership.

CSK have won the Bulgarian title 30 times in its 62-year history, the last time in 2008 before finishing runners-up last year.