But Gigant, who were sitting second in the standings before the match, were quickly reduced to six, after another two players sustained injuries.

According to the rules in Bulgarian football, the match has to be halted if one of the teams has fewer than seven men on the pitch. Referee Stoyan Denev had no choice but to blow the “final” whistle.

The visitors from Chavdar were awarded with the 3-0 victory.

The match became the shortest football encounter ever played in Bulgaria and the Balkans as a whole.

In September, the football world followed a scandal which shook the Bulgarian football, when the country’s top-flight side Levski Sofia became victims of swindlers, who falsely introduced themselves as Rubin Kazan representatives in order to affect the result of their Bulgarian league derby with CSKA.