Bulgarian strugglers Etar sign 16 players in survival bid

SOFIA: Struggling Bulgarian club Etar Veliko Tarnovo have signed 16 players from countries as far afield as Cape Verde and Afghanistan in a bid to stay in the domestic top flight.
Only three of the signings announced by the 1991 champions on Saturday are Bulgarians while the others come from 11 different countries, including Sweden, Poland, Germany, Norway, Cape Verde and Afghanistan, who are 189th in the latest FIFA rankings.
Etar, who at the mid-season break are bottom of the 16-team league with eight points from 15 games — six adrift of safety — hit the headlines in October when they sacked coach Tsanko Tsvetanov for the third time this season.
Frustrated Etar fans turned their fire on Turkish owner Feyzi Ilhanli and the board, who moved the club to the southern town of Sliven saying the decision was down to the Veliko Tarnovo municipality’s plan to repair the stadium.
“This is not the team that I know, a team with a great history,” said captain Niko Petrov, when deciding to voluntarily quit the team during a five-week training camp in Turkey last month. “This is a parody!” Etar will play their home matches at the Hadzhi Dimitar stadium, some 120 km away from Veliko Tarnovo while the players will reside in a Sliven-based hotel.
In happier times, Etar provided five players for the famous Bulgaria team that reached the 1994 World Cup semi-finals in the United States.