Tottenham’s preparation for their Europa League clash against Qarabağ consisted of an underwhelming smash-and-grab job against Championship Coventry City and a much more assured victory over Brentford. For the Azerbaijani outfit, it was arguably events off the pitch that dominated proceedings, with President Ilham Aliyev laying the foundation stone for their new Imarat Stadium, due to open in 2026, on land that four years ago was under Armenian control.
Brentford manager Thomas Franck made the point that they were “playing against a team whose end stand is bigger than our stadium in terms of capacity.” Whilst Qarabağ’s new ground will have a modest 11,700 capacity, it is built on land only recently de-mined, soaked in the blood of tens of thousands of casualties, to the backdrop of millions of displaced civilians, countless war crimes, and after over 30 years of conflict, a region still on edge.
This is the first season that the Azerbaijani outfit has started with its regional namesake in its entirety under the control of Azerbaijan. But despite the triumphant homecoming, replete with messaging proclaiming national sovereignty over the region, that win, and the team itself, is entangled in a history of conflict, horrendous crimes committed by both Armenians and Azerbaijanis against one another, and the rule of the long-time authoritarian government.
As the Soviet Union began to splinter, Stalin’s chickens came home to roost, and the borders he drew to delineate the ethnic republics of the USSR on a ‘divide and rule’ basis began to throw up all sorts of tensions. Nagorno-Karabakh was a predominantly but not exclusively ethnically Armenian region within the Azerbaijani Soviet Republic, and voted to join Armenia in a referendum in 1991 on an 82.1% turnout (ethnic Azeris in the region boycotted the poll, with 99.9% of voters in favour).
There had been conflict since 1988, but full-scale fighting broke out at the end of 1992, and it wasn’t until 1994, with up to 38,000 fatalities and more than 850,000 displaced people later, that a ceasefire was reached. The stalemate saw Armenians control not only Nagorno-Karabakh, but a further 9 percent of internationally recognised Azerbaijani territory. This change on the ground saw Qarabağ, the football club, having to leave their (subsequently destroyed) Imarat Stadium in Aghdam. 686,000 Azerbaijanis were expelled, with 350,000 Armenians forced the other way.
For the next two decades or so, Qarabağ eked out a nomadic existence away from home. A league and cup double during 1993 marked the high point of their success, with only a handful of cup triumphs before a marked reversal of fortunes in the mid-2010s, financed by one of the wealthiest conglomerates in the country, with links to the ruling dictatorship. The symbolism of Qarabağ as a club, forced from its home town with the hopes of a return, representing the country on the international stage, was one that could not be passed up by the ruling powers.
It has enthusiastically embraced its status as a symbol for Azerbaijiani sovereignty over the Karabakh region, and ever since its expulsion, has been well supported by people from outside the Aghdam region. It wasn’t until the club started to receive serious financing from Azersun Holding that things really began to take off. Sponsorship in 2001 allowed the club to alleviate some short term financial issues, but it was another decade before ownership and far greater financing saw Qarabağ dominate domestically.
They have won 10 of the past 11 league titles, reached the group stage of European competition every year since 2014, including a run to the Europa League last 16 last season. Azersun’s owners, Hassan and Abdolbari Goozal, even went so far as to build a new 5,800-seater stadium in Baku. They also have extensive links to the ruling Aliyev clan, with Hasan acting as a director to three British Virgin Islands companies owned by members of the Aliyev family. It has received billions in government infrastructure contracts, and the team itself has become something of a symbol for Azerbaijan’s uptick on the international stage – a reminder of Baku’s sovereignty over Karabagh and a legitimation/propaganda tool for the ruling Aliyev clan.
The second Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020 saw Azerbaijan regain many of those regions, including Aghdam. Players and management paid a ceremonial visit that was plastered over state media. Qarabağ’s home town was now back under Baku’s control, and the head coach Qurban Qurbanov gushed “With great pride we are waiting for the first game we will play at Aghdam. I thank our army, Mr Supreme Commander [President Aliyev], for making us feel this way.” But with the stadium demolished and the local ethnic Armenian population having fled, their return would ultimately be delayed, with nothing but a ghost town and the remains of a long destroyed stadium to greet them.
Three years later, the third Nagorno-Karabakh war would see Azerbaijan militarily take over the entire disputed region. Following on from what UN Secretary-General António Guterres described as “indiscriminate attacks on populated areas,” 150,000 Armenians fled Artsakh, their name for the region.
This time, Qarabağ would be involved in an even greater display of Azerbaijani triumphalism. In December 2023, the club hosted its last 16 Azerbaijan cup tie at the Khankendi Stadium in what Armenians refer to as Stepanakert, the former capital of Nagorno Karabakh, and home ground of the Artsakh (Armenian name for the region) unofficial national team. Qarabağ had never previously played a home match here, but the importance of the occasion was not lost on anyone. As the country’s most prestigious club, a beacon of national sovereignty over disputed territories in general, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. Featuring none too subtle messaging reading “Karabag is Azerbaijani”, President Aliyev dropped in to give a triumphant speech, boasting, “Some people claimed that ‘Karabakh is Armenia, full stop’ in this stadium four years ago. We have proved to them that Karabakh is Azerbaijan!”
Whilst Azerbaijan claimed that ethnic Armenians would be allowed to stay, history and ethnic hatred very much cast aspersions on the trustworthiness of those claims. Azerbaijiani writer Bahruz Samadov claimed the country has “a state ideology based on resentment and revenge” against Armenians owing to the conflict and displacement caused. Back in 2019, Arsenal’s Armenian midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan was unable to travel to the Europa League final in Baku due to fears for his safety.
In 2004, Lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan was murdered by Lieutenant Ramal Safarov of the Azerbaijani army whilst both were participating in a NATO Partnership for Peace programme in Budapest – he explained his actions through an ethnic lens, was extradited to Azerbaijan in 2012 to serve out the remainder of his sentence, before being pardoned and promoted.
Recent years have demonstrated the near impossibility of keeping politics out of sport. But a European response similar to that shown against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is very unlikely. For one thing, the situation between Armenia and Azerbaijan is more ambiguous – for all of Azerbaijan’s heinous crimes, Azerbaijani citizens have also suffered. What’s more, none of the territories controlled by Armenians after 1994 were internationally recognised, making it hard to pin down Azerbaijan’s most recent wars as ‘illegal’.
More to the point, Azerbaijani money is intertwined with European football’s power brokers, and with the country posing less of a strategic risk to the continent (Armenia notwithstanding) than an irredentist Russia, there is simply less incentive to disentangle relations. Despite the myriad human rights abuses, destruction of Armenian heritage within the country, and most recent wars, Azerbaijan has established itself as a favoured destination for European power brokers. The 2019 Europa League final, hosting rights for Euro 2020, a Grand Prix of its own, plus the 2015 European Games – these have been in Baku, the ‘jewel of the Caspian’. With European governments themselves keen to look the other way (else they upset vital natural gas supplies from Azerbaijan, all the more vital since sanctions on Russia), there is very little chance of sporting or other sanctions befalling the country, legitimating Baku’s military action.
But on top of Azerbaijan’s own growing assertiveness, Qarabağ as a team has become embroiled in the president’s own vision for the country. On several occasions he has received the team, often taking the opportunity of such publicity to castigate referees that took decisions against the team in key European fixtures. He has called them the “leading team of Azerbaijani football” and in 2021 stated “it is no secret that the name of the Qarabağ football club puts additional responsibility on you. You glorified the name both during the occupation and after the historic victory of the Second Karabakh War. And you promote this name throughout the European football space.”When that Imarat Stadium eventually opens, planned to meet UEFA Category 4 requirements, there is the very real possibility of European clashes taking place on territory that for so long has been disputed. To a continental audience that has to date often ignored the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, marginalised the ramifications to appease a country vital for supplying natural gas, the day that Qarabağ return to Aghdam will present Europe with the fait accompli of total Azerbaijani victory, consequences for Armenia be damned.
