Bulgaria coach Krasimir Balakov has accused England of having a bigger racism problem than his own country before the Euro 2020 qualifier in Sofia on Monday.

The build-up to the game has been overshadowed by fears England's players could be subjected to abuse after they were targeted during the qualifier against Montenegro in Podgorica in March.

England manager Gareth Southgate held a meeting with his players to underline the Uefa protocol in dealing with such incidents - but the subject has provoked an angry response from the Bulgarian football authorities and now coach Balakov has also hit back defiantly.

Bulgaria Football Union president Borislav Mihaylov wrote a letter of complaint to Uefa about "unjust branding" while Balakov said: "What I can say is that I don't think we have a problem.

"In the Bulgarian championship, we have a lot of players of different ethnicities and skin colour. I don't think that we have this big problem like, for example, England do."

Asked to elaborate, Balakov added: "What I meant was that in the Bulgarian championship we've not had such problems while there have been incidents in various levels of English football involving racism, which I consider something normal because it's a big country with a very diverse population.

"But we don't have this problem in Bulgaria, I can assure you of that."