The match "Gabala" - "Borussia" suddenly gets a political shade

Some media in Azerbaijan writes  makes  assumptions about the impossibility of coming Armenian football player Henrikh Mkhitaryan to the country as part of Dortmund "Borussia".  The reason is stated his trip in 2011 to the Armenian-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan believes illegal trips to Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories without the consent of official Baku. Those who violate this order are included in the black list, which prohibits their entry into the territory of Azerbaijan.

 "Borussia" is the same group with "Gabala" in the Football Europe League, and the teams will play with each other twice this fall - in Germany and Azerbaijan. So far, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry did not comment on the situation.

However, oddly enough, the name of Mkhitaryan is not in the list of "undesirable persons", despite  his trip to Karabakh. The FC "Borussia" has responded to a report of the Azerbaijani press.

"We hope that this is not true. Now Henry  is  a very important player for us, for a few weeks  he demonstrated the great game," said Sport1.de  the spokesman of "Borussia" Sasha Fligge.

The UEFA president Michel Platini also commented on the situation.

"We hope that every player will have the right to take part in our tournaments, regardless of nationality and the need to get visas and entry permits. We will do everything to obtain it," said Platini.

Several years ago, the national teams of Azerbaijan and Armenia were in the same qualifying group, the matches then were cancelled for safety reasons. But now the situation is different, the talk is about the clubs of Azerbaijan and Germany, which are not in conflict.

Earlier, official Baku demonstrated integrity and did let to the country PACE members, even despite the expected sanction of prohibition of the PACE meetings in Azerbaijan.

At the same time, there are precedents, when even Armenian security forces involved in the conflict visited Azerbaijan. -06D-