[2] In his youth years, Kotev started to play football at Vihar Gorublyane.

[citation needed] In 2002 Kotev signed with Lokomotiv Plovdiv, with whom he became a Champion of Bulgaria and holder of Bulgarian Supercup in 2004.

After the departure of Aleksandar Tunchev and Valentin Iliev in the summer of 2008, he started to play a lot more regularly showing his great abilities, great sense for marking and also scoring some important goals for the club.

[6] He was released on 15 June 2017[7] and publicly expressed his disappointment regarding the late announcement of the club's decision.

[9] On 12 June 2018, Kotev was appointed as sporting director of CSKA 1948 which marked his retirement as footballer.