Berbatov’s agent pours scorn on Mafia rumours

Rumours that Dimitar Berbatov evacuated his girlfriend and newborn daughter from Bulgaria following threats from the Mafia have been ridiculed by the Manchester United star's agent.

British media reported today that Berbatov's mother, Margarita, had been contacted ten days ago by gangsters who told her the footballer's family would be in danger if he did not pay £500,000 in protection money.

Worried that members of Bulgaria's Ministry of Internal Affairs were also in on the plot, Berbatov is reported to have struck a deal with the Mafia, before flying his girlfriend Elena and daughter Dea, who was born in October, to Manchester on a jet chartered by Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.

But Emil Danchev, Berbatov's agent, poured scorn on British tabloids for reprinting the story. He told the Bulgarian newpaper Dnevnik: "It is offensive for me to even comment on such yellow-press rumours. This disinformation first appeared in Bulgarian newspaper Show and now the English are copy-pasting it.

"These are complete fabrications, and they should never be considered by serious Bulgarian media."

The story echoes the notorious 'Posh kidnap' affair of 2002, when the News of the World and the Sun claimed a Romanian man, Alin Turcu, had led a plot to kidnap Victoria Beckham and her sons and demand a £5m ransom from her husband, the-then Manchester United footballer David Beckham.

But the case collapsed the following year, after Turcu had been held on remand for eight months. The papers were forced to apologise to Turcu, whose photograph and name they published, when he won a court case in 2007 to clear his name. ·