As Azerbaijan finalises its preparations for the four games it is due to host at Euro 2020 this summer, the oil-rich country’s many critics are hoping the tournament will be a chance to pull back the curtain on the extent of the corruption and suppression orchestrated by its regime.
The capital Baku, where Wales are due to kick off their campaign against Switzerland on 12 June, was built for occasions like this. But on the drive from Heydar Aliyev Airport into town, the ultra-modern, glass-fronted metropolis constructed via the country’s vast energy boom handily shields the crumbling Soviet-era accommodation that is home to ordinary Azerbaijanis. Increasingly, their voices are being silenced too.
“Our job is to use events like this to highlight our concerns, the most serious of which is long-term suppression of freedom of expression in the country,” says Amnesty International’s Natalia Nozadza.
Reporters Without Borders ranks the country 168th out of 180 for press freedom, by far Europe’s most restrictive state, and while criticism of Baku’s human rights record is nothing new, historically there has been little concern expressed by Uefa regarding Azerbaijan’s conduct at home.
Some might say that is fair enough. Football has been selling out to the rich and powerful for a generation. In that vein, along with Euro 2020, Baku has received hosting rights for the Europa League final, the Super Cup and the 2016 Under-17 European Championship. Uefa delegates crouch in the VIP box behind a mantra of keeping politics out of football, and the show goes on.
Yet politics and football have become dangerously blurred. During the past six months, Azerbaijan’s transgressions have bled directly into its involvement in football, and many say, have come to impinge directly on Uefa’s stated rules and principals.
Since September 2020, when a military offensive against Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh region was launched, war propaganda has become a feature of domestic matchdays and has featured prominently in clubs’ social media output.
In October, Uefa issued a warning to FK Qarabag, the national champions, after a group photograph was posted of 27 players and staff giving a military salute while posing with the country’s flag after a Europa League game against Legia Warsaw.
The club have since continued to make posts glorifying Azerbaijan’s military activities in Karabakh, and in December the Association of Football Federations of Azerbaijan (AFFA) congratulated via Twitter two of its members on receiving government recognition for their role in active combat.
War rhetoric has become normalised in Azerbaijan’s football narrative. In October last year, Qarabag’s PR chief, Nurlan Ibrahimov, published a Facebook post calling for Armenian men, women and children to be killed. Uefa issued a lifetime ban, but the Football Federation of Armenia (FFA) has demanded the governing body go a step further and bar Qarabag from European competition.
“I am not trying to justify the post I wrote,” says Ibrahimov. “It was inhumane. But they [Armenia] were provoking us by targeting civilians. I was hearing about child deaths almost every single day of the war. A seven-year-old girl was killed by an Armenian rocket attack before our game against Legia.” In November, the Prosecutor General of Armenia in Yerevan opened a criminal case against Ibrahimov over his comments.
“What I have an issue with is that Azerbaijan politicises football,” says Sascha Duerkop, an activist who has been working with German police investigating links between the country’s parliament and corruption in Baku. “They are not always a peaceful nation. All the clubs in Azerbaijan have actively supported the military operation. They all saluted before and after every game, they had posters celebrating their glorious army of heroes.
“Qarabag played a Europa League game in Hungary where the players all wore t-shirts bearing the names of cities in Karabakh and a little soldier saying ‘It will soon be ours’. I really don’t understand why Uefa is allowing these things to enter so prominently into sports. Although let’s remember that one of Uefa’s main sponsors is the Azerbaijani state energy company.”
This gets to the heart of the matter. That company – SOCAR – has been one of Uefa’s principal sponsors since 2013.
In October, the FFA lodged a complaint with Uefa’s general secretary relating to SOCAR’s posting of “war photos and videos, and belligerent posts on its social media page.” No action was taken, and the company’s posts have not been removed.
“I don’t think Uefa should allow any state company to be one of its principal sponsors,” says Duerkop. “They have very strict rules on government interference.
“But at the same time, they allow a company owned by the Azeri state to be a key Uefa sponsor. It shouldn’t be possible.
“SOCAR itself was every day posting drone footage of Armenian soldiers being bombed. They celebrated that in their social media posts. I would call it war porn.
“They used footage from the war that they had cut together and used to advertise Azerbaijan and SOCAR as a company. But it seems Uefa couldn’t go against it, because it was being done by one of their sponsors.”
The AFFA didn’t respond to a request for comment, but Ibrahimov said: “Neither Qarabag nor the AFFA has violated Uefa standards. Though we were part of the great patriotic war, we have always supported peaceful initiatives.”
Uefa was approached for comment but did not respond.
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from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3fis0gI
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