The story of the Moscow trip of four of Levski Sofia football club’s key players, on the day they had to play against arch rivals from CSKA, has all the features of a Hollywood-style sting comparable to the eponymous 1973 Paul Newman classic movie.

The scheme had everything, starting with the millions of euro Levski was about to get for its players (an unthinkable sum of money by Bulgaria’s standards), revenge and Asian gambling syndicates.

It all started with the stunning news that four of Levski’s main players, Darko Tasevski, Jose Ze Soares, Youssef Rabeh and Zhivko Milanov, were on the verge of being sold to russia’s defending champions Rubin Kazan football club from Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan. The four would be sold for more than four million euro. The news came two days before Levski’s match against arch rivals CSKA Sofia, a match always considered a possible title decider.

Having missed the chance to make it through the group stages of the Uefa Champions League this year, Levski fans had to content themselves with the Europa League tournament where their team lost its first game 0-1 to Villareal and was trailing behind CSKA in the domestic championship. Hence the news that Levski’s president Todor Batkov was willing to sell four of his best players ahead of the CSKA match was enough to make Bulgaria’s sport world explode. Only the news of the millions of euro Rubin was willing to pay for the players eased the pain of Levski supporters and gave some credit to Batkov’s profit-driven decision.

The story was that Rubin had a number of its players diagnosed with the H1N1 virus and was in desperate need of permanent replacements given its performance at home and in the Champions League. Because of the flu, Rubin was given permission by Uefa to buy the players despite the closed transfer window, the media was told. And since, a few months ago, Rubin was rumoured as having an interest in Levski players, the whole affair looked credible, albeit unusual. As a result, the four players were flown to Moscow on the day of the CSKA match on September 22. Their managers had their contracts ready and Levski’s financial director Konstantin Bazhdekov was sent to sign the contract while the players underwent medical tests in a Moscow clinic.

And this was where the story took a U-turn. When Bazhdekov arrived in Moscow, Rubin’s people presented him with a completely new deal which made him talk to Batkov. He, in turn, called Rubin’s president only to discover that Rubin had never had any interest in Levski’s players and whoever had been Rubin’s representative in the talks with Levski was probably a fraudster. At that point the four Levski players were sent back home, landing two hours after CSKA had won a convincing 2-0 victory against their team. Bazhdekov’s words said it all. "We were a victim of a scam and it is our fault that we did not check things thoroughly."

It later transpired that Levski had been negotiating with people who presented themselves as Rubin’s representatives. They submitted an offer with Rubin’s logo and had business cards with the club’s details. Unfortunately, nobody at Levski bothered to check their credibility. Speculation from that moment on was feverish.

Some said that Levski was a victim of Asian gambling syndicates who made money on the CSKA win. Others suggested that it was CSKA’s revenge on Levski, referring to last year’s drama when CSKA was kicked out of the Uefa tournament after Uefa got a letter from Bulgaria revealing CSKA’s problems with its licence. The result of the whole saga was that Levski’s management was discredited in the eyes of its players and supporters.