Krasimir Balakov: Bulgaria Doesn't Have 'Big Problem' with Racism Like England

Bulgaria manager Krasimir Balakov has said English football has a bigger issue with racism in the game than his own country ahead of the match between the two sides on Monday.

The nations will face off in a UEFA 2020 European Championship qualifier at the Natsionalen Stadion Vasil Levski in Sofia, which will be partially closed after Bulgarian supporters were found guilty of racism during matches against Kosovo and Czech Republic in June.

Much of the discussion ahead of the game has centred on what would happen if English players are subjected to racist abuse at the venue, although Balakov has said the visitors on Monday have their own issues to deal with, per Goal:

"What I can say is that I don't think we have a problem. In the Bulgarian championship, we have a lot of players of different ethnicities and skin colour. I don't think that we have this big problem like, for example, England do.

"What I meant was that in the Bulgarian championship we've not had such problems while there have been incidents in various levels of English football involving racism, which I consider something normal because it's a big country with a very diverse population. But we don't have this problem in Bulgaria, I can assure you of that."

Per Goal, the match with England is one of two games where the capacity of the stadium will be reduced. There will be 5,000 seats cordoned off against the Three Lions and 3,000 shut down when Czech Republic visit in November.

The last time England played in Sofia was in 2011. After the game, Bulgaria were fined €40,000 after Ashley Young, Ashley Cole and Theo Walcott were subject to monkey chants.

The comments from Balakov come after Chelsea forward Tammy Abraham said the England team would be willing to walk off the field if they were the target of any racist abuse, per DW Sports:

During the qualifying matches, England players have already been the victim of racist chanting when they visited Montenegro in March.

After that match, Three Lions boss Gareth Southgate had his say on the abuse:

Southgate has also spoken of English football's need to sort out issues with racism ahead of this encounter, saying "we don't look at other countries in a way that we don't shine a mirror on our own."

In September, social media platform Twitter said action had been taken against "more than 700 examples of hateful conduct" following racist abuse of Premier League footballers, per BBC Sport.

As the BBC report noted, Abraham was the victim of online abuse, as was Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba.

England go into the fixture after being on the end of a shock 2-1 loss to Czech Republic on Friday. Meanwhile, Bulgaria are looking for their first win of the qualifying campaign, having lost three and drawn three of their matches so far.