By Sabina Mammadli

Armenia's provocation has been thwarted by the fact that Azerbaijan's Club of Fun and Resourceful will continue to play in the league in Russia's St Petersburg under its old name "Shusha", Baku-based news website Day.az has reported. 

Azerbaijan's "Shusha" team producer Mushvig Abbasov stated this in a video message on his Instagram page.

It should be noted that the team, which had previously passed the first round of a festival in Sochi, was forced to change its name in the second round.

This news sparked outrage on social media among Azerbaijanis. They stated that it would be better for the team to leave the competition entirely rather than change the name in this case.

According to the producer, Azerbaijan imposed a condition on the competition organizers that either the team's name be returned or the "Shusha" team leave the competition.

Earlier, Russian television game show host Alexander Maslyakov's deputy, Ruben Jaghinyan, an Armenian by nationality, demanded that the name of the Azerbaijani team be changed. Jaghinyan's provocation failed as a result of Azerbaijan's intervention.

On November 8, 2020, Azerbaijan liberated from Armenia's almost three-decade occupation Shusha, known as the crown of Karabakh.

In November 2020, Armenia accepted its defeat and Azerbaijan’s historic victory ended six weeks of fighting in Karabakh.

In all, 2,908 Azerbaijani soldiers got martyred in the war and six servicemen are still missing. During the legendary battle of Shusha, highly trained and skilled Azerbaijani special forces servicemen scaled cliffs and liberated Shusha from a brutal occupation. 

As a result of the successful continuation of the victory march, the state flag of Azerbaijan was hoisted on November 8 in Shusha for the first time in 28 years. Despite efforts to Armenianize Shusha, the latter protected its dignity and the national spirit of Azerbaijan.