Running a football club in Bulgaria is a perilous job. In other countries club owners might fret over poor results, but in this corner of Europe owners have the additional concern that they might end up with a bullet in the head.

In the last dozen years no fewer than 15 club owners or backers have died violently. So when Alexander Tasev, president of Lokomotiv Plovdiv, was gunned down on May 18 as he drove through an upmarket Sofia suburb in broad daylight, nobody was much surprised. After all, Mr Tasev held perhaps the most dangerous job in world sport: he was the club’s third president to be shot dead since 2005.