Full Name: Municipal Football Club Sliven 2000 Bulgarian Name: Общински футболен клуб Сливен 2000 City: Sliven Founded: 2000 (1914) Stadium: Stadion Hadji Dimitar (15,000) Colors: Orange, Blue Nickname: Voivodite (Войводите)
Description: Sliven 2000, newly promoted to the Bulgarian A Group for the 2008-09 season, were founded on February 29, 2000. They are the successor to FC Sliven whose origins go all the way back to 1914 under a dizzying array of names. A few of the names - Sportist, Asenovets, DNV, DNA, General Zaimov, Mlada Gvardia, DFC Sliven, Slivenski Textiles, AFD Sliven and finally FC Sliven. The team seem to still be known by a variety of names besides Sliven 2000 - mainly FC Sliven and OFC Sliven. The official club name is transliterated from Bulgaria's Cyrillic alphabet as OFK (Общински футболен клуб) which translates as Municipal Football Club.The club president (and current mayor of Sliven) is Yordan Letchkov, scorer of crucial goals for Bulgaria during their miraculous run in the 1994 World Cup who began his career at FC Sliven.
The club's stadium is named for Hadzhi Dimitar, an early leader in Bulgaria's struggle for independence from the Ottoman Empire. He was born in Sliven. As leader of a band of anti-Ottoman guerrillas (known as Hajduks) Hadzhi Dimitar received the title of voivod, as did a number of other anti-Turkish leader. The city of Sliven is proud of this heritage and Sliven 2000 (and all previous clubs from the city) are known as the Voivodite (Войводите in Bulgarian) - the voivods.
Full Name: Municipal Football Club Sliven 2000
