After one football club held a respectful tribute, the fallout was a surreal scramble to reassure friends, family — and one very startled former striker — that he was, in fact, alive.
Before Arda Kardzhali faced off with Levski Sofia, both teams gathered on the centre circle and bowed their heads for a minute’s silence in honour of Petko Ganchev. The gesture was solemn, sincere — and based on information that quickly proved to be wrong.
Mid-match, which took place back in March, Arda posted to social media to say they had been misinformed and issued an apology to Ganchev and his family.
“The management of PFC Arda would like to express its deepest apologies to the team’s former footballer, Petko Ganchev, and his loved ones, after the club received incorrect information regarding his death,” the club said in a statement. “We wish Petko Ganchev many years of health and to enjoy Arda’s successes.”
For Ganchev, the afternoon spiralled from routine to ridiculous. He wasn’t at the stadium when the tribute happened — and found out the hard way.
“I was 10 minutes late because I had a personal job,” Ganchev told the Bulgarian website Blitz. “While driving home, my phone started ringing a lot. I parked in front of our house, entered the yard and my wife greets me crying, shouting: ‘Petko, Petko, they announced on TV that you have died!’
“I could not understand what she was telling me and what had happened. Then two of my friends called me. Being buried alive is quite stressful, really.”
There was gallows humour, too. “When I heard the terrible news, I poured myself a small brandy,” he said, per The Guardian.
Club officials were made aware of the mistake and posted their apology before the game had finished. Ganchev added that Arda’s sporting director, Ivaylo Petkov, phoned him to say sorry — an attempt to steady a situation that had already spread beyond Kardzhali.
“So many people called me – relatives, friends, acquaintances and not so big acquaintances,” Ganchev said. “The situation was not pleasant, but in the end we have to be positive.
“Look, sometimes such things happen. It is normal to spread a rumour here in the village, but they announced it in front of the whole football audience of Bulgaria.”
On the pitch, Arda salvaged something from a bizarre day. Bulgaria’s fifth-placed side battled to a 1-1 draw, with Stanislav Ivanov’s 82nd-minute strike cancelling out Marin Plamenov Petkov’s opener for the visitors.
If it all sounds unprecedented, it isn’t entirely. Football has a history of mistaken memorials. Back in 2009, non-league Bishop Auckland held a minute’s silence for former captain Tommy Farrer — only to discover their error when chairman Terry Jackson phoned Farrer’s wife, Gladys. When calling to offer his condolences, he was ultimately told: “He will be back in a minute. He’s only popped out to get a paper.”
And in 2018, Ballybrack FC informed the Leinster Senior League that player Fernando Nuno La-Fuente had died in a motorcycle accident, prompting a postponed match and tributes across fixtures. It later emerged La-Fuente had simply moved from Dublin to Galway for work, with the club apologising and calling it a ‘gross error of judgment’.
Featured image credit: Diema Sport(Screenshot)
