Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2025 All Rights Reserved

Kiril Despodov named Bulgaria's Footballer of the Year for the 5th time

Evdokiya Popadinova from Lazio took the award for No. 1 in women's football.

Kiril Despodov
Photo: BTA

The striker of the Greek club PAOK Kiril Despodov has been named Footballer No. 1 of Bulgaria for 2024. He wins the award for the 4th consecutive time and 5th time in total. 

Despodov was honored for the first time in 2018, and in the last 4 years he has been consistently at the top. This brings him level with football legend Hristo Stoichkov in terms of the number of awards. 

Despodov is only behind Bulgarian football star Dimitar Berbatov, who has been elected Footballer of the Year 7 times.

Despodov's runners-up are Iliya Gruev ("Leeds") and Dimitar Mitov ("Aberdeen").

Before the awards were presented, a minute of silence was held to honor the victims of the tragedy at a nighclub in Kocani, North Macedonia.

Evdokiya Popadinova
Evdokiya Popadinova from Lazio was honored for the No. 1 in women's football.

Stanimir Stoilov
Coach of the Year is the former coach of Levski and current coach of the Turkish club Göztepe Stanimir Stoilov.



Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

More from category

Vesela Lecheva and Stefka Kostadinova will run for chair of the Bulgarian Olympic Committee

Vesela Lecheva is running for chair of the Bulgarian Olympic Committee (BOC), her press service informed. The general election meeting of the headquarters is scheduled for March 19 in Sofia.  Lecheva, a two-time Olympic silver medalist and..

published on 2/28/25 1:56 PM
Bulgarian Olympic champion Karlos Nassar

Karlos Nassar named Bulgaria's Athlete of the Year for 2024

Olympic, world and European weightlifting champion Кarlos Nassar has been named Bulgaria's Athlete of the Year for 2024. Olympic champion Karlos Nasar: My limit is still very far  137 sports journalists participated in the 67th Athlete of the..

published on 2/25/25 8:55 AM
Isabella Shinikova

Isabella Shinikova is in the final of a tennis tournament in Egypt

Bulgaria's Isabella Shinikova has qualified for the singles final of the hard court tennis tournament in Sharm El Sheikh (Egypt) with a prize fund of 15 thousand dollars. The number 1 seed Shinikova defeated the representative of the hosts..

published on 2/22/25 3:48 PM