site.btaKiril Despodov Named Bulgarian Footballer of the Year

The captain of the Bulgarian national football team and player of the Greek club PAOK (Thessaloniki) Kiril Despodov won the 63rd edition of the poll Footballer of the Year for his performance in 2023. A total of 111 media representatives voted in the poll of Bulgarian sports journalists.

Despodov won the vote with 317 points. The second place went to Leeds United (England) midfielder Ilia Gruev and the third place went to Ivaylo Chochev, who moved from CSKA 1948 to Ludogorets in the winter transfer window.

The same three players ranked the same way last year. For Despodov this is the third consecutive Footballer of the Year award and the fourth in his career, thus becoming the third most crowned player in Bulgarian history after Dimitar Berbatov (seven awards) and Hristo Stoichkov (five awards).

Bulgarian national team and PFC Cherno More Varna head coach Ilian Iliev won the award for the best coach of the year with a total of 317 points. He was followed by Georgi Dermendzhiev (Ludogorets) with 85 points and Ivaylo Petev (Ludogorets and Universitatea Craiova) with 80.

Jakub Piotrowski (Ludogorets) won two awards. He became the best midfielder and the best foreign player in the country. Piotrowski did not attend the ceremony as he is with the Polish national team before the European Championships qualifiers in Germany.

Dinko Horkas (Lokomotiv Plovdiv) was voted as the best goalkeeper and Jose Cordoba (Levski) as the best defender. Welton Felipe (Levski) was awarded best striker and Hristiyan Petrov (CSKA-Sofia) was voted as the best young player under 21.

Evdokiya Popadinova was once again voted as the best female football player in this country - this was the sixth such prize for her.