The intersection between local government, budget, and party interests in Gabrovo has a name: Yantra 1919 Football Club. Mayor Tanya Hristova (GERB) is the club’s chairperson, the chairperson of the Municipal Council (GERB) until a year ago is a member of its Management Board, its executive director was elected as a GERB MP, and half of the city’s sports budget goes to this club.
On December 2, 2025, Yantra 1919 football club requested an additional BGN 80,000 for the year from the Municipality of Gabrovo. In a letter to the municipality, the club explained that its expenses had jumped by 22% thanks to a “successful year” and the entry of the U18 youth team into the elite.
The club is registered as a non-governmental organization, whose chair of the board of directors is the mayor of Gabrovo, Tanya Hristova. Until January this year, the club’s executive director was Mihail Mitov, second on the GERB list for the parliamentary elections in October 2024 and currently a member of the GERB parliamentary group, who took the place of Tomislav Donchev, who became a minister in the Zhelyazkov cabinet.
Until December 31, 2024, the club’s board of directors will also include the chairman of the Gabrovo Municipal Council, Kliment Kunev (GERB), and municipal councilor Mitko Dimitrov (GERB).
It is evident that the GERB structure in Gabrovo is committed to supporting football, which explains the generosity of the municipal budget for the “mayor’s club,” as the people of Gabrovo call it.
Half of the budget for football is still not enough
For years, the club has been receiving half of the money for sports in Gabrovo. For 2025, the total budget for all sports clubs in the city is BGN 850,000. With the adoption of the budget in the spring of this year, OFK Yantra 1919 received BGN 450,000 – more than half. At the end of the year, however, it turned out that due to the successes during the season, it was necessary to hire two new coaches and the money allocated in the “salary” fund was not enough. Therefore, an additional BGN 80,000 is requested.
“Our request is dictated by necessity, not luxury,” Sports Director Borislav Stoychev told the Municipal Council, without going into details about the club’s expenses because he was not familiar with them.
However, not everyone in the Municipal Council agrees with the additional subsidy. “How exactly is this money spent?” ask councilors. “There are other associations in Gabrovo that need support,” others object. But an extraordinary meeting is convened only for Yantra, and the municipality sponsors the club with money taken from the reserve—the financial piggy bank for unforeseen circumstances.
Conflict of interest or conflict with morality
Tanya Hristova does not tolerate the club publicly and has authorized her deputy in charge of “Finance and Property,” Maria Yozozova, to represent her in decision-making and signing all documents related to the activities of the association “United Football Club Yantra” (OFK Yantra 1919).
It is curious why Hristova did not resign from the Management Board, since she promised to do so back in 2020. “Za Istinata” wrote at the time that during the vote on the budget of Gabrovo, when the same football club received a substantial targeted subsidy, in response to a question from municipal councilor Lena Eneva about whether there was a conflict of interest, Hristova stated that she would terminate her membership in OFK Yantra.
In fact, there is no conflict of interest within the meaning of the law. Upon investigation of a report from the Anti-Corruption Commission, no documents were found certifying payments from the Municipality of Gabrovo to the football club signed by Tanya Hristova.
For a conflict to exist, there must be a person holding public office and a private interest that could influence their decisions. A private interest is anything that leads to a material or immaterial benefit. In this case, there is no material benefit for Hristova or the two municipal councilors, as none of them received remuneration for their membership in the club’s Management Board, the Commission points out.
However, it is debatable whether, in this particular case, Tanya Hristova receives intangible benefits in the form of honors and recognition. It should not be overlooked that, with the mayor of Gabrovo as chair of its board of directors, Yantra 1919 football club is “a step ahead” of other sports clubs in the city in terms of funding.
Suspicions that the club may not be spending its money properly are further substantiated by the fact that at the beginning of the year, the investigative website BIRD.BG reported that after being sworn in as a member of parliament, Mihail Mitov continued to receive a salary as executive director of Yantra 2019. He also continued to receive a salary, albeit for only five days, from Municipal Sports Properties, where he was also employed. The BIRD publication does not answer whether Mitov returned the money he received unlawfully.
Five years after Za Istinata first wrote that the mayor’s football team enjoyed privileges, this has not changed; on the contrary, the club has retained and even expanded its privileges, and the local website Za Gabrovo even hints at systematic and unjustified favouritism.
