SOCCER star Dimitar Berbatov has been threatened by a gangster for sending flirty texts to his lover, it was claimed last night.
The £30million Manchester United striker allegedly made a series of great passes to model Nikoleta Lozanova, who was Playmate of the Year in his Bulgarian homeland in 2006.

Her boyfriend, Georgi "The Head" Stoilov - a mobster with a reputation for extreme violence - was furious when told of suggestive messages.

The gangster replied to the texts warning Berbatov to keep clear for his own good, according to a Bulgarian magazine.

Stoilov became head of one of his country's most feared clans when his father Stoil Stoilov and his minders were wiped out by a bomb in a lift in 2004.

Berbatov, 28, has been dating Elena Shtilianov on and off for three months and there is talk of pregnancy and marriage.

Friends of Berbatov dismissed Nikoleta, 31 - a former lover of Liverpool reserve goalkeeper Nikolai Mihailov - as "a fantasist".

They claim she invented the texts to wind up Stoilov, and that Berbatov was "surprised" to receive threats from the mobster.


Berbatov was quoted as saying: "I've met her once, when she was with Nikolai, but nothing happened."

A book last year claimed Berbatov was kidnapped by a warlord trying to "persuade" him to switch teams when he was 18.

After Mihailov split from Nikoleta, he said she was like an old Eastern-bloc Trabant boneshaker car compared with his new "Ferrari" girlfriend.

The next day his £170,000 Ferrari was attacked with acid.

United and Berbatov's agent would not comment