If Arsenal beat Valencia to progress to the Europa League final in Baku, it’s looking likely that we’ll be able to call upon the services of Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
Unai Emery chose not to pick the Armenia international for our group stage game with Qarabag, played in the Azerbaijani capital’s Olympic Stadium, due to safety fears. The midfielder also missed a game with Gabala in 2015 when he was on the books at Borussia Dortmund.
While there are no diplomatic relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan because of a longstanding conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, The Times [£] reports that UEFA will exert pressure on Azerbaijan to issue a visa for the player to feature in the final.
“It is a standard procedure for Uefa to send letters of support to associations, clubs or embassies in order to obtain visas for players and allow them to play in Uefa competition matches,” the governing body told the newspaper.
The report claims that UEFA is willing to leverage the fact that Azerbaijan is hosting four matches of the EURO 2020 finals to force the issue. We suspect that won’t be necessary.
If he doesn’t get a visa. The country should not be allowed to host any UEFA matches. There is no way a club should be forced to play without a key player in this day and age.
The only way a player should miss out on a match is if they misplace their passport ?
Or fear of flying lol
Describing Mkhitaryan as a key player is rather generous. Clubs should not be forced to play without any players due to diplomatic relations .
Maybe he is not comfortable travelling there himself.
About the visa, I am with him 100% but a guy who has close to zero mental toughness being booed by tens of thousands of people is not a winning formula. Plus, Arsenal will need to concentrate on the game not going through situations where things are thrown at Mikhi and the game is stopped many times. In terms of football, if Rambo is available, I will be happy that Mikhi stays home.
if he doesn’t get the visa then this game should be moved. The Emirates would be a fine location 🙂
Simple: if Arsenal get to the Final (a considerable if), and Azerbaijan refuse a visa to HM, the match should be played elsewhere. It cannot be acceptable for another country to pick Arsenal’s team for them. There is a parallel with the diplomatic crisis caused by Apartheid South Africa’s refusal to allow England to include Basil d’Oliveira (a South African-born Cape Coloured) in their touring team in 1968. That caused the collapse of the whole tour.
Don’t really care. He only really offers frustration. Down vote if your deluded…
I’d forgotten about this. It’s not right that they’ve even left it till now to take a stance. They should have made clear in the group stage game that intolerance of anyone would not be tolerated.
Now it’s a priority because it’s a higher profile game, but if you aren’t consistent with these things nothing will ever change. Not like you’d expect anything from a gaggle of cunts like UEFA anyway but still
I won’t have anything to do with intolerant people.
Well that doesn’t sound very tolerant of you.
There should be NO tolerance to intolerance.
So that just makes your “ No tolerance to intolerance” a complete oxymoron.
What it seems you’re actually saying is “ My point of view is always right, I’m the narrator of right and wrong, and I’m intolerant of anyone with a conflicting viewpoint”
Things are rarely black and white, good people do bad things, bad people do good things, and the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Having different viewpoints like disagreeing on what your favourite ice cream is or which Kardashian wore it better is one thing. Having different viewpoints on whether or not people from a particular race/culture/country should be allowed the same rights and treatment as any other human being, is a completely different ball game. This isn’t the Old Testament and I’m not Jesus Christ. If your beholden of viewpoints or opinions that promote the unjust discriminatory treatment of human beings, then you’re garbage and you’re opinions are garbage and I don’t have to pretend otherwise. Let’s stop pretending like eveyone’s opinions on… Read more »
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been in conflict on and off for 103 years, their last major conflict was in 2016 where 350 were killed. Not allowing reciprocal visa access for each other’s countries, is probably best in continuing to uphold the current ceasefire, the last thing that anyone wants is a citizen getting killed or hurt on their soil that could potentially set things off again. And you’d imagine both countries would warn their citizens against making such travel arrangements, for their own safety, and to avoid further souring diplomatic relations. This has nothing to do with race or culture,… Read more »
Crash is right, no tolerance for the enemies of tolerance.
Not sure why he has lost all semblance of shooting ability. If he can sort it out, potentially playing Ozil on right side (with Iwobi on left, Laca up top)in absence of Auba may be potential. Or maybe try Nketiah up top with Laca supported by Ozil then in a triangle with Iwobi on left. ………………….Laca……………….Nketiah……………………. …………………………..Ozil……………………………………… or …………………………….Laca………………………………….. …….Iwobi………………………………………….Nketiah……. or …………………………….Laca…………………………………. …….Iwobi……………………………………………Ozil……… I won’t bother with 4-2-3-1. 3-4-1-2 or 3-4-2-1 for me. Koscielny-Sokratis partnership clearly no where near the vaunted image some like to delude themselves with plus 3 at the base helps with out wingbacks in Kolasinac and… Read more »
Eh? The topic is if a single player will be able to play for diplomatic reasons in a final that we haven’t qualified for yet.
A player that is not even mentioned in this post!
BTW, just thought I’d add that it’s 30 years to the day since the Greatest Moment Ever…
What was that?
‘Thomas, It’s Up for Grabs Now!!!!’
Unreal.. Can’t believe it’s been almost 30 years. May 26, 1989 at Anfield. I think Family Enlcosure Man is thinking about that… But just a month off on the date.
Could have sworn May was next month…. ?