Soccer star Dimitar Berbatov has been threatened by a gangster for sending flirty texts to his lover, the Sun reported.

The GBP 30 M 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 the article 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 GBP 170,000 Ferrari was attacked with acid.

United and Berbatov's agent would not comment.