ARMENIAN SOCCER CHIEF ‘REGRETS’ AZERBAIJAN MATCH CANCELLATION
By Emil Danielyan

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
June 25 2007

The Armenian Football Federation (AFF) on Monday expressed regret
at the weekend decision by European soccer’s governing body, UEFA,
to cancel planned matches between the national teams of Armenia
and Azerbaijan.

The two teams were due to face each other after being drawn into
Group A of the qualifying competition for the 2008 European football
championship. Their head-to-head matches, scheduled for this September,
were certain to arouse nationalist passions in both South Caucasus
states that remain in a state of war over Nagorno-Karabakh.

The AFF, backed by Armenia’s government, has insisted all along that
the potentially tense games be played in Baku and Yerevan. However,
its Azerbaijani counterparts have been categorically against this,
saying that they can not guarantee the security of Armenian players and
coaching staff and pushing for neutral venues. They have also said that
the very fact of Armenians arriving in Azerbaijan would be an affront
to the memory of Azerbaijanis killed during the Karabakh conflict.

UEFA’s repeated attempts to get the two federations to find a mutually
acceptable solution have failed.

"As no suitable compromise could be found between the two associations
it was decided to cancel the two matches, namely Azerbaijan-Armenia
scheduled for September 8 and Armenia-Azerbaijan scheduled for
September 12," UEFA said in a statement following a meeting of its
executive committee in the Netherlands. "It was decided to award both
associations zero points for the matches."

"I regret that we lost an opportunity to see the [two] matches of our
team whose play is becoming stronger and more spectacular day by day,"
the AFF chairman, Ruben Hayrapetian, said in a statement. He stressed
that the Armenian side was always ready to hold one of the games in
Yerevan "at the highest level" and to send its team to Baku.

Significantly, Hayrapetian, who is also a senior member of the
governing Republican Party of Armenia, made it clear that the AFF
will not challenge UEFA’s "unprecedented" decision in an international
arbitration body.

Hayrapetian had earlier threatened to take UEFA to court, arguing
that the Geneva-based body’s statutes obligate all member states to
host football games on their territory and take adequate security
measures for that purpose. Armenia was only prepared to play its away
game with Azerbaijan in a neutral ground.

The match cancellation, by contrast, was welcomed by Azerbaijan.

"UEFA made the right decision," Azerbaijan Minister on Youth and
Sport Affairs Azad Rahimov said, according to the Regnum news agency.

"Frankly, that decision was unexpected for us."

Azerbaijan is bottom of the Euro 2008 Group A with five points from
eight matches, while Armenia has seven points from seven outings. The
Armenians won their last two games played earlier this month, moving
up to the 80th place in worldwide rankings of national teams that
are issued by the game’s worldwide governing body, FIFA. Their 1-0
shock victory in Yerevan over group leaders Poland marked the national
team’s biggest achievement yet.

Armenia’s cancer-stricken Scottish coach, Ian Porterfield, is widely
credited with the two-game winning streak.