Two severe car accidents shocked Bulgarian sport in just two days. On June 24 CSKA basketball team general manager Emil Cohen and team president Vladimir Fedyaev died in a car crash in France. International news agencies reported the that two people died after a BMW collided with a bus on a highway in France. The bus had 45 passengers. The two men in the car died immediately.

Twenty-four bus passengers were injured and taken to hospital. French officials confirmed that the CSKA managers were the two people travelling in the car. Cohen and Fedyaev had been meeting Union of European Basketball Leagues (ULEB) officials in France and had to travel back to Bulgaria on June 25. French media reported that the BMW’s driver must have fallen asleep for a moment. It was a big loss for CSKA’s basketball team since Cohen was the man behind the team’s success. In just one year Cohen managed to turn CSKA’s women’s basketball team into a regional force. On March 18 the team won its first ever Adriatic WABA title, which gave the team the right to play in the Euroleague, Europe’s most prestigious basketball tournament. This had never previously been achieved by a Bulgarian basketball team.

The next day on June 25 Levski volleyball team suffered losses, this time on Bulgarian soil. Levski Sikonko volleyball team manager Georgi Zaharinov was killed in a traffic accident on the road from Sofia to the coastal city of Varna. Two people were killed and four were injured in the crash. Italian member of the national volleyball team Ivan Contrario suffered heavy injuries and his condition is critical. The driver of the second vehicle that crashed is also in critical condition. A woman, who died in the crash, has not been identified yet. Police are investigating the reasons for the accident. It happened in broad daylight on an open and clear road.

Witnesses claim that the two vehicles crashed head on as they were passing each other. Again fatigue is a possible reason for the accident. The vehicle which suddenly went in the opposite lane and hit Zaharinov’s vehicle is owned by Bulgarian National Bank, whose employees were going to a business trip.