Author: Lena Karagyozian

In the Armenian capital Yerevan, the graffiti gets straight to the point. On a busy road near the summit of the city’s Cascade, a Soviet-era concrete stairway built into Yerevan’s natural contours that rises nearly 400 feet above the city, a simple message is stencilled on a grey wall blackened from fumes: “Save Armenian football”.

The message dates to before Armenia’s Velvet Revolution of 2018, when the Football Federation of Armenia (FFA) was ruled by its former president, the businessman and parliamentary deputy Ruben Hayrapetyan, a ruthless and unpopular figure who, critics say, held the federation in an iron grip and was personally responsible for the corruption that has been endemic to football since the country gained its independence in 1991.

Hayrapetyan was swept away with the rest of the Nomenklatura booted from power when the country’s former president, Serzh Sargsyan, was removed following massive street demonstrations four years ago. The result has been an overdue “democratisation” of football governance, and a transparency in the way the FFA does business that has brought change both to the domestic championship and to the national team.

Kevin Doyle and Henrikh Mkhitaryan 11/10/2011 Henrikh Mkhitaryan goes up against Ireland's Kevin Doyle in a Euro 2012 qualifier. Photograph: Lorraine O'Sullivan/Inpho (©INPHO/Lorraine O'Sullivan/©INPHO/Lorraine O'Sullivan)

Armenia – population less than three million – does not pretend to be a powerful football country. But there has always been potential here. Led by their first global superstar, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, the team made a brave stab at qualifying for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, thrashing Denmark 4-0 in Copenhagen.

The team is an enigma. During Euro 2020 qualifying, they were in pole position to reach the finals with three games to go before a spectacular implosion that culminated in a 9-1 defeat to Italy in Palermo. They have since conceded nine again in a friendly against Norway, yet just 12 months earlier they had beaten Iceland and Romania to lead their World Cup qualifying group just before the halfway stage.

On the eve of those qualifiers, Armenia’s vocal football supporters were granted a wish they had long called for, the appointment of an overseas coach. In came the 66-year-old Spaniard Joaquin Caparros, the archetypal journeyman boasting 22 previous appointments including at Villarreal, Athletic Bilbao and Sevilla. Armenia’s most successful period had been masterminded by a foreigner, the late Ian Porterfield, former Chelsea manager, whose memory is cherished here. Supporters were hopeful of a repeat.

“One of our demands has always been that the FFA appoint a proper, talented coach,” says Arsen Zaqaryan, a member of the First Armenian Front (FAF), a supporter activist group that formed to be the principal point of opposition to Hayrapetyan’s influence. In a climate of fear and suspicion, they were the only voices that spoke out publicly against the former president. “Our native coaches aren’t qualified for the job, but Hayrapetyan would not listen. We have wanted a foreign coach for a long, long time, but we could not be heard.

“This guy [Caparros] is a proper coach. He had a really good start, in the World Cup and in the Nations League. Then something went wrong and I don’t think he quite knew why.

“People are ready to trust him, he’s well liked, he’s very positive. Nobody is calling for him to be removed. People want him to be given another chance, because we’ve had some really good games under him. I think that could change if we have a poor Nations League and a poor European Championship campaign.”

Either way Armenian football is, for the first time in the country’s short history, deemed to be in safe hands, to the relief of the FAF and other stakeholders who had grown tired of Hayrapetyan’s interference.

A view of the Republican Stadium 3/6/2022 Republican Stadium will host Ireland's clash with Armenia in Yervan, Armenia. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho (Ryan Byrne/Inpho)

It wasn’t just supporters who had run out of patience. In December 2019, police raided the former president’s mansion as part of an investigation into suspected embezzlement, falsification of documents, and misuse of powers in a commercial organisation, all in relation to his tenure as FFA chief.

They are far from the most serious charges to have been brought against him. In 2012, he was forced to give up his seat in parliament, where he represented the party of his close ally, the deposed former president Sargsyan, after security men in his employ murdered a military doctor at a restaurant owned by Hayrapetyan in Yerevan. In 2015, he avoided prosecution despite admitting to carrying out a physical attack that left a business rival in hospital.

“Hayrapetyan is a criminal,” says Zaqaryan. “He’s from the 90s, he had his methods. Maybe there were some things that were better [in football] in his time, but in general this is a big improvement.

“He would have his favourite players, so talented players who deserved it never got called up. He would always decide. That favouritism, the interference from the president, is gone now.

“The new president, Armen Melikbekyan, is a former journalist. He’s more democratic, more educated, he has good knowledge of football. He also has good relations with the First Armenian Front, which is the most important thing. We’ve had a number of meetings between him and the FAF. We have good relations now with the FFA, which is very new. That never happened under Hayrapetyan.”

Several important developments have taken place recently in Azerbaijan-Armenia relations.
The first was a meeting on Dec. 14 of last year between President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia, facilitated by European Council President Charles Michel. This was the very first meeting in three decades between Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders without Russia’s presence.
The second was a meeting on April 6 in Brussels, again facilitated by Charles Michel, who characterized the encounter as the true beginning of the “negotiations process” between the two countries.
The third was a landmark speech that Pashinyan delivered on April 13 in the Armenian parliament, in which he said: “Today, the international community clearly tells us that to be the only country in the world that on a bilateral level does not recognize the territorial integrity of an ally of Turkey, Azerbaijan, is a great danger not only for Artsakh (the name Armenians use for Karabakh) but also for Armenia. Today, the international community again tells us to lower the bar a bit regarding the question of the status of Artsakh and you will ensure a great international consolidation around Armenia and Artsakh. Otherwise, the international community says, do not rely on us, not because we do not want to help you, but because we cannot help you.”
He also pointed out that the Karabakh question was not, in his opinion, a territorial one but rather one that concerned the rights and freedoms of Armenians living there.
For decades, Armenia has considered this issue as a question of territory. Pashinyan became the first Armenian political leader to make this distinction. In fact, as the Soviet Union dissolved, Armenia committed itself to the preservation of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and the Soviet-era borders. The question of territory had thus already been solved in 1991.
Only a political leader who won a strong electoral mandate could take such a bold step. As expected, Pashinyan’s statement caused a storm both in parliament and on the streets. The opposition faction in parliament boycotted the parliamentary sittings for one week. These are understandable reactions in a highly politicized atmosphere. The boycott will have a limited effect on the unfolding of events because the international agreements are on Azerbaijan’s side.
A threshold has now been crossed with Pashinyan’s parliamentary address. More reactions may be expected, but everything is unfolding as it would in a pluralistic society.

A bumpy road lies ahead for both countries. Because of deep-rooted mutual negative perceptions, fanatics in both countries will raise objections to the process.

Yasar Yakis

One of the merits of Pashinyan’s approach is that it made him the first political leader to address the heart of the Karabakh problem. No other leader so far had been able to make a distinction between the rights and freedoms of Karabakh Armenians and the international obligations that Armenia had assumed in becoming an independent country.
Russia’s temporary absence in the bilateral Azerbaijan-Armenia meeting does not of course mean that it will be sidelined indefinitely. After the ceasefire of the Second Karabakh War, Moscow monopolized the Minsk Process by practically excluding the two other co-chairs, the US and France. As Russia is now almost at war with NATO in Ukraine, the Minsk Process co-chairs may not be able to convene a meeting, but Russia may still stick to the process for the sake of remaining in command.
After the Second Karabakh War, a broad agreement was reached to set up a Joint Border Commission whose tasks would be twofold. One is the process of defining the borders of villages inhabited by Azerbaijanis or Armenians. In the almost seven decades of the Soviet era, it did not matter much whether a particular village was inhabited by Azerbaijanis or Armenians because they both were Soviet citizens. Neither did the borders of the village matter, whereas borders may now become a crucial issue. Russian archives will now become important because original borders were delineated by Josef Stalin in 1921. Russia will probably use this leverage to counterbalance EU-mediated negotiations.
The second task is demarcation, the process of physically marking the border by erecting poles.
Azerbaijan will not oppose committing itself to preserving the rights and freedoms of its citizens of Armenian origin. Apparently, it was able to persuade the EU Council president that these international commitments must be observed, mutatis mutandis, by both sides.
A bumpy road lies ahead for both countries. Because of deep-rooted mutual negative perceptions, fanatics in both countries will raise objections to the process and attempt to interrupt it, but if wisdom prevails, such obstacles could be overcome by moderate and realistic leaders.

• Yasar Yakis is a former foreign minister of Turkey and founding member of the ruling AK Party.
Twitter: @yakis_yasar