The FIM MotoGP World Championship will arrive in Bulgaria as of 2012, following a preliminary agreement reached between the Bulgarian Motorcycle Federation and Dorna Sports, the commercial rights holder for MotoGP. The new five year deal, which will take MotoGP to Bulgaria from 2012 to 2016, was signed in Sofia by Dorna Sports CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta and the President of the Bulgarian Motorcycle Federation Bogdan Nikolov, in the presence of the Chairman of the Bulgarian Grand Prix Organizing Committee Rumen Petkov and the President of the Bulgarian State Agency for Youth and Sports Vessela Letcheva. Following the press conference, an additional meeting was held between Carmelo Ezpeleta and the Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev to further discuss the project. Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta commented, “This is the first step in bringing MotoGP to Bulgaria, which is an exciting project for us. The Bulgarian government demonstrated great interest in bringing a Grand Prix here and it will be an important development for us, having never staged a race here before. We are highly confident in Bulgaria’s ability to host and organise Grands Prix efficiently and safely.” The meeting in Sofia also saw the announcement that Bulgarian free-to-air national broadcasters BNT will have exclusive live television rights to the FIM MotoGP World Championship from 2009, which will see all MotoGP races broadcast live in Bulgaria.