Puneet Varma (Editor)

Bulgarian Supercup

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Country
  
Bulgaria

Number of teams
  
2

Most championships
  
CSKA Sofia (4)

Confederation
  
UEFA

Current champions
  
Cherno More Varna

Bulgarian Supercup

Founded
  
1989; 28 years ago (1989) 2004; (restored)

The Bulgarian Supercup (Bulgarian: Суперкупа на България) is the trophy won in a football match held between the football club that has won the Bulgarian first football division in the season that ended in the year of the match and the holder of the Bulgarian Cup at that time. In case the champion of Bulgaria has also won the cup, the Bulgarian Cup finalist competes with the champion in the match for the trophy.

Contents

The Supercup match is usually held during the weekend before the start of a new season. Since 2004 the Supercup game has been an annual event.

The most successful club in the event is CSKA Sofia who have won four Supercups.

Litex Lovech is the club that has participated in most seasons of the Supercup - six.

Inaugural Event 1989

The first match for the Bulgarian Supercup was held in 1989. The match was proposed by Kiril Zaharinov, sports editor at the Bulgarian News Agency and secretary of the union of the Bulgarian sport journalists at that time.

The match was held at 9th September Stadium in Burgas, opposing 1988-89 Bulgarian champion and Cup holder CFKA Sredets (now CSKA Sofia) and the runner-up in the 1988–89 edition of the Bulgarian Cup Chernomorets Burgas. CSKA won the match 1-0 thanks to a goal by Hristo Stoichkov.

The first Supercup trophy was made in Italy and was 80 cm tall, weighing 15 kg. Today it is kept in the CSKA Sofia museum.

Since 2004

After the political changes of 1989 in Eastern Europe the Bulgarian Supercup match was suspended. Fourteen years later the Bulgarian Professional Football League in association with the Bulgarian Football Union decided to restore the event organising a Supercup match between the champion of the 2003-04 season Lokomotiv Plovdiv and the 2003–04 Bulgarian Cup holder Litex Lovech. The match was held at Naftex Stadium in Burgas and Lokomotiv won 1-0 after a last-minute goal by Ivan Paskov.

Since the restoration of the tournament in 2004 eight teams have participated in the event and six of them have managed to win the trophy - Lokomotiv Plovdiv (winners in 2004), Levski Sofia winners in 2005, 2007 and 2009), CSKA Sofia (winners in 2006, 2008 and 2011), Litex Lovech (winners in 2010), Ludogorets Razgrad (winners in 2012), and Beroe Stara Zagora (winners in 2013).

Since 2004 all the winners of the Supercup trophy have also been runners-up in other editions of the tournament, making the inaugural runner-up Chernomorets Burgas in 1989 the only participant in the event to not have won the trophy.

In 2011 the winner of the cup CSKA Sofia became the single most successful team in the event, winning their fourth trophy as they beat Litex Lovech with final score 3-1. Also, as of 2011 Litex Lovech has participated six times in the Supercup match - most of all other participants.

From 2004 onwards a brand new trophy is made for every event as it was decided by the organisers that each Supercup winner should retain the trophy in perpetuity. However, three designs have been used for the trophy as of 2014 - one for the Supercups of 2004-2006, another for the trophies of 2007-2010 and the third from 2011 onwards. The current trophy was designed in Italy in 2007 and is 100 cm tall.

References

Bulgarian Supercup Wikipedia