Last week Levski Sofia fans mocked the governing body with a banner saying ‘Say yes to racism’ but if the club, the Bulgarian FA and Uefa do not react then the problem will only get worse

Ten days after supporters of Serbian Partizan Belgrade displayed a banner “Only Jews and Pussies” in the Europa League game with Tottenham, another disgraceful incident occurred 400km further to the east. In the Bulgarian capital Sofia supporters of Levski held up a banner saying “Say yes to racism” during their team’s dramatic 3-2 win against Ludogorets, rivals of Liverpool in the Champions League group stage.

Not only did they mock one of Uefa’s most famous anti-racism campaigns, but to make things worse they changed the logo of European football’s governing body. The map of the European continent was replaced by a pistol with the words “Uefa Mafia” around it.

The disciplinary body of the Bulgarian Football Union opened an investigation but a spokesman at Uefa told the Guardian on Friday that it was unaware of the incident. Possible sanctions from the Bulgarian federation vary from a fine of €19,000 to a couple of games behind closed doors. Levski’s next home game is on 25 October against rivals CSKA, which means that for the first time in its 66-year history Bulgaria’s best known football game could take place without any spectators there to witness it.

Officials from Levski have so far not commented publicly on the incident and that not only fails to solve the problem but actually becomes part of it. And as time goes on it will only exacerbate the matter.

The only official statement came from Levski Sofia National Fanclub whose members explained the incident as “idiotic behaviour from a few masked boys who don’t want to become part of our organisation”. Given the fact that some of the supporters are stewards during the home games and help police with the security issues their reaction towards the incident against Ludogorets could have been stronger.

This is not the first time Bulgarian football has been involved in such shameful scandals. Back in 2012 Levski played Bosnian FK Sarajevo in Sofia ,in the first leg of their Europa League second-round match, and supporters of The Blues displayed a banner “Ratko Mladic and Arkan have fucked you. Now it is our turn”. Uefa fined the Bulgarian club €30,000 and the incident almost led to a diplomatic scandal between the two countries.

Playing with history is often like playing with fire – it is dangerous and somebody will almost certainly get hurt. And mixing the massacre of Srebrenica, one of the greatest tragedies in recent history, which was led by general Ratko Mladic in which 8,000 Bosnians lost their lives, with football is not merely a display of bad taste. It is sick and pathetic and the only appropriate punishment for such inappropriate behaviour is a lifetime ban from attending football games.

A few weeks back, Ludogorets were told by Uefa to close a section of their stadium as a punishment for racist behaviour during their game against Steaua Bucharest. “A group of Ludogorets fans chanted anti-Roma slogans targeting Steaua supporters,” fans’ discrimination monitoring group Fare said.

Unfortunately, those kind of tough sanctions are yet to become a part of Bulgarian football. Part of the problem lies in the poor football infrastructure in the country. Although cameras are required by the regulations of the Bulgarian federation, some of the stadiums are still without them – making it impossible to identify the fans upon whom the sanctions should be imposed.

Even the national stadium, Vasil Levski, one of Bulgaria’s most modern football venues, has not been free of this type of incident. This is where Bulgaria played Denmark in a World Cup qualifier in October 2012 and made headlines for the wrong reasons after the Danish defender Patrick Mtiliga was subject to racist abuse from Bulgarian fans during the game.

Every time the left-back touched the ball there were monkey chants from the stands. A month later Fifa ordered Bulgaria to play its next home game behind closed doors and that was the first time football’s world governing body made such a decision based on racist remarks. If it is true that a football match could reflect the problems in one society, then there is a long road in front of Bulgaria as a nation.

A source at the Bulgarian FA said that the governing body held a meeting with representatives of the United orgnisation of football fanclubs in Bulgaria recently. The FA gave them handbooks from Fare in an attempt to educate fans and to avoid these incidents happening in the future.

The problem of racism is, however, not restricted to football. Two weeks before the unsavoury incident during the LevskivLudogorets game residents of a village near Sofia refused to let their sons and daughters go to school because 10 children of refugee families from Afghanistan and Somalia were due to attend the school. In the end the refugees were relocated to Sofia to start their education there.

It is fair to conclude that the message these Bulgarian children received from the incident was … say yes to racism. It simply is not good enough and there is much still to be done to stamp out these sinister events in society and on the terraces of Bulgarian football.