The UEFA Executive Committee, chaired by UEFA President Michel Platini, reviewed the situation regarding the location of the matches to be played between the two nations that warred in the early 1990s and are at loggerheads over a protracted land dispute, and decided not to approve the staging of the qualifiers at all.
“As no suitable compromise could be found between the two associations it was decided to cancel the two matches, namely Azerbaijan-Armenia scheduled for 8 September and Armenia-Azerbaijan schedule for 12 September, and to award both associations zero points for the matches,” the UEFA Executive Committee announced in a press release late today (June 23).
The subject of these football matches has been over-politicized in the Armenian and Azeri press since the results of the draw bringing the two teams in one qualifying group were announced early last year.
Football functionaries from Armenia and Azerbaijan failed to meet on several occasions on the margins of different European football forums to try to negotiate the venues for the games, and the argument proceeded mainly in the media and during separate meetings with UEFA officials.
While Armenia insisted on entertaining the Azeri team in Yerevan with player and fan security guaranteed on the state level and volunteered to travel to Baku first if similar guarantees were provided, Azerbaijan’s football functionaries categorically objected to the Armenian team playing on Azeri soil and insisted on both matches to be played on neutral ground.
Eventually UEFA officials also found few arguments in favor of staging the games on a neutral ground, among which Ukraine, Austria/Switzerland and Spain were mentioned as the most likely venues.
Security concerns have always dogged matches between Armenian and Azeri teams on the football ground.
In January 2006 Armenia’s champion Pyunik refused to play Baku’s Neftchi in the semi-final of the Commonwealth of Independent States Cup in Moscow to forestall possible clashes in the stands between Armenians and Azeris, who are known to have large ethnic communities in the Russian capital. The walkout of the Armenian team cost it dearly, as it was disqualified from the tournament and banned from participating in it for good.
Last fall, an Armenia v Azerbaijan match in the Under-19 European championship qualifying group tournament in Cyprus turned violent after some of the partisan Armenian Cypriot crowd overreacted to unsportsmanlike behavior, obscene gestures and constant provocations by several Azeri players and climbed the protective fence to step onto the pitch. Play stopped for half an hour and resumed only after police intervention. -By Suren Musayelyan, ArmeniaNow reporter
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