Due to the hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, the football teams of Azerbaijan and Armenia will play their home matches far beyond the borders of their homeland. The Georgian national team, a neighbor of both opposing sides, was also not left aside.
The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) decided to move the League of Nations matches involving the national teams of Azerbaijan and Armenia outside the zone of the armed conflict that broke out on September 27. Both countries have declared martial law.
Thus, the match between the national teams of Armenia and Georgia, which was to take place in Yerevan on October 11, will take place on the same day in Poland. Footballers from neighboring countries will take to the field in the Polish city of Tyche.
The national team of Azerbaijan was supposed to host the national team of Cyprus in Baku on October 13. However, the game has been relocated to Albania. Now Azerbaijanis and Cypriots will face each other in the Albanian city of Elbasan.
Both matches will be played without spectators. But the political situation in Armenia and Azerbaijan has nothing to do with it. All UEFA matches are held in front of empty stands due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The first team to suffer from the escalation of tension in Nagorno-Karabakh was the Ararat-Armenia football club. On October 1, within the UEFA Europa League play-off stage, the Yerevan team had to play against the Serbian Crvena Zvezda in Cyprus. That game ended with a score of 2:1 in favor of the club from Serbia.
