site.btaOlympic Weightlifting Champion Karlos Nasar: Federation's Debts May Block My World Championships Entry, President Should Resign

Bulgarian weightlifter and 2024 Olympic gold medalist Karlos Nasar asked for the resignation of Bulgarian Weightlifting Federation (BWF) President Anton Kodzhabashev on Monday. The athlete took part in a press conference in Sofia where he talked about the problems in the Federation and his next goals. 

Nasar said he does not want to deal with the problems of the Federation and would gladly just mind his snatch and clean and jerk [types of lifts in the sport], but he is concerned that because of the debts of the headquarters, it could lose its licence, which would deprive him of the opportunity to compete at the upcoming IWF World Championships in December. 

"That is my concern and that is why I am intervening. My harsh words about Mr Kodzhabashev are entirely on a professional note. I have nothing personal against him. I just want a man with the vision to come into our Federation and do his job. I have not seen any action from Mr Kodzhabashev since he took his post," said the record holder in clean and jerk and in the overall lift. 

Unliftable Debts Weigh over BWF

The verbal war between Nasar's camp and the Federation started last week when the athlete gave an extensive interview to bTV, revealing that the Bulgarian weightlifters and coaches have not received salaries for eight months. The weightlifter was adamant that he does not want to work with the BWF while it is led by Kodzhabashev.

The latter was elected as BWF President on March 14. He faced debts accumulated under his two predecessors, Nedelcho Kolev and Arif Madzhit.

In an open letter to the media of September 12, Kodzhabashev said that BWF's bank account has zero balance and debts accumulated from Madzhit's irregular spending are close to BGN 1 million. The transactions of the former president had nothing to do with the activities of the Federation: "buying cigars, spending in malls, nightclubs, obscure Revolut transfers, hotels abroad that have nothing to do with BWF's international obligations, etc".

"On May 8, we sent a notary letter of invitation to Mr Madzhit to refund the amount of BGN 331,632, representing the balance of misspent funds. In January 2024, he refunded BGN 99,000 card payments from the BWF account for personal purposes," the current President said.

Word against Word

Nasar went on to say that he does not believe the current head of BWF is capable of dealing with the situation. Last Thursday, he blamed the Federation of asking him to set aside the proceeds of 30% of his sponsorship contracts to it. "If I do not want to do that, I should not sign contracts, should not be paid. And I did not sign," he told bTV.

In an interview on the Bulgarian National Television on Sunday, Kodzhabashev claimed that the athlete is lying and urged him to take a polygraph test for the truth to come out.

In the press conference on Monday, Nasar said he was ready to do that. "I think that if the questions are asked correctly, he [Kodzhabashev] will fail. [...] But if he is so insistent on this polygraph, despite my busy schedule, I will go through with it," he said. 

"The bigger problem for our federation, however, is that no new contracts are expected to be signed soon. This is quite sad and another reason for Mr. Kodzhabashev's resignation," Nasar added.

Eyes on IWF World Championships in Bahrain

Stressing that he will compete only for Bulgaria even if that means he will have to miss some tournaments, Nasar talked about his next goals: "My wish is to become Olympic champion at least once more, and why not a third and fourth time. But it is one thing to want it, another thing to be able to do it, and an altogether different thing to actually do it. There are many steps ahead of us, the first of which is the World Championships in Bahrain."

In Bahrain in December Nasar will compete in a new, higher weight class, probably up to 94 kg.

"Since [the 2023 IWF Grand Prix in] Qatar, I have always been first and in every competition I have been able to build on my results. Now I am taking a stance just to make sure I can keep competing. I have no ambitions for power in the Federation. I pay attention to the people around me and try to stay away from ill-wishers. From October, I will only focus on my training. I think the only thing that could bring me down is if someone slips me doping," the gold medalist from Paris 2024 said.