Although Bulgaria had fine 1980 international season, ranking its clubs 9th in Europe, the picture was rather typical: 16th in the general 5-year ranking of UEFA. Right in the middle. And so was the season, but some aspects of it were interesting and ground-breaking. One was the introduction of a new Cup – the Bulgarian Cup. There was pressure coming from UEFA, because the country was the only one in Europe – may be in the whole world – without national cup: what served for that was the Soviet Army Cup, with a trophy given by USSR. The new tournament brought big confusion – at home, it ranked lower than the older tournament,which still was perceived as the national cup tournament and its winner went to represent Bulgaria in the Cup Winners Cup for a few more years. The main problem was continuity and history: so far, the Soviet Army Cup had that, the new cup had nothing and looked like just one more tournament, more akin to the one-time cup honouring the suspect tribute of 13 centuries of Bulgaria, played in the summer of 1981 and attached to the 1980-81 season – it was international tournament, called ‘1300 years of Bulgaria’ and not to have another issue. Anyhow, the country got one more national Cup and the following years the order was slowly changed until the Soviet Army Cup was reduced to second and unimportant place.
The second big news was the start of exporting players abroad – it was done in the typical East European, or rather Soviet, manner: one player was sold at first with great caution to test the waters. The first player was neither current star, nor young.
Petko Petkov, the aging star of provincial Beroe (Stara Zagora) was sold without much official fuss to Austria (Vienna). It happened in the winter break of the season early in 1981. Petkov was 34 years old, but had impressive record: in the all-time table of goal-scorers he was 6th with 152 goals, mostly scored for Beroe and a few for his single season with Akademik (Svishtov). His goals could have been more, if Beroe did not find itself in the Second Division from time to time, but he also excelled in the lower lavel, ranking 3rd in the Southern B group with 96 goals and to him belonged a seasonal record, which very likely will never be equaled, let alone bettered: . For the national team, Petkov played 33 matches and scored 5 goals – he was never exactly a first choice and hardly impressed anyone, but there are players like that – big stars otherwise, but unsuitable for national teams. By 1980 it was clear that Petkov was approaching retirement, so to an outsider it must rather funny he was chosen to be the first Bulgarian allowed to play professionally abroad. However, nothing strange, if one follows Communist logic: he was old player with a family, which meant he was not going to create embarrassing problems. At the end of his career, he would hardly think of running away, especially with family in Bulgaria. The candidate for his services was Austria (Vienna), another guarantee that he was not going to defect: the Soviets already tried that market, selling Zinchenko to Rapid. Austria was considered friendly enough state, unlikely to accept a refugee, who arrived with official blessing. If everything went fine with the first player, other may follow. Eventually.
According to Petkov, the contarct was signed quickly and without fuss – he knew no details of it and neither he, nor his club were part of the deal: everything was conducted by the Bulgarian Football Federation, as everywhere in Eastern Europe. As for his destination, Austria (Vienna) remembered him well – once upon a time in the early 1970s they played against Beroe in the UEFA Cup and Petkov scored 6 goals in the Austrian net. Perhaps they would have signed Petkov then and there, but had to wait until late 1980 for a chance – the guy was old, but he still was able to score and, if nothing else, was a bargain. The expectations may not have been very high, but old Petkov settled well in Vienna and played for Austria until 1982 a total of 51 matches in which he scored 10 goals. So, the first Bulgarian professional emerged, soon to be followed by almost every veteran player. The Bulgarian Federation established the typical Eastern European age rule: only players above 28 years of age were to be sold to foreign clubs. The first crop was actually made of players over 30.
Lastly, there was pretty lame season, but the Second Divison was at its largest with 44 clubs playing in the 2 groups – this was coming to an end, because the Second Division was not really competitive, made painfully clear this very season. Curiously, at least one Bulgarian club played great on international level – CSKA – which strangely contrasted to the general picture. Also, a second Bulgarian won the Golden Shoe as the top European goal-scorer – Georgy Slavkov (Trakia Plovdiv) scored 31 goals this season and nobody else in Europe managed that many.
Well, that was all on the positive side. On the negative loomed the fact that 12 of the 16 First Division teams were preoccupied only with avoiding relegation and the national team failed to qualify for the World Cup finals again. CSKA was the top team at the moment in every aspect, yet, in the team of the year there was only one player of CSKA –at the same time Petko Petkov, who played only in the half of the season made the selection. In fact, only 4 players from the top 4 teams made the yearly team and just two were from Sofia’s clubs, which otherwise made 3 of the 4 strong teams this year.