UEFA Bans Azeri Soccer Officer Who Said ‘We Must Kill All Armenians’
NOVEMBER 19, 2020
Nurlan Ibrahimov said ‘we must kill all Armenians’
An official at the Azerbaijan’s Qarabag soccer club has been provisionally banned by UEFA while he is investigated for potentially “violating basic rules of decent conduct” in comments he made against Armenians on social media, the European soccer body said on Wednesday.
Nurlan Ibrahimov, a public relations and media manager for the Qarabag team has been banned from “exercising any football-related activity,” said the UEFA, the Union of European Football Associations.
“We must kill all Armenians—children women and the elderly. We need to kill them without making a distinction. No regrets. No compassion,” Ibrahimov wrote of his social media platforms last week, prompting Armenia’s National Soccer Federation to call for the expulsion of the entire Qarabag team from UEFA on Saturday.
UEFA said that Ibrahimov had also been charged with racist and discriminatory conduct over the comments. It did not give further details and Ibrahimov did not immediately comment.
“The Qarabag FK official, Mr. Nurlan Ibrahimov, is provisionally banned from exercising any football-related activity immediately effective until the UEFA Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body decides on the merits of the case,” said a UEFA statement on Wednesday, adding that Ibrahimov had violated the basic rules of decent conduct.
In a statement on Sunday, Qarabag claimed that it had opened an internal disciplinary investigation against Ibrahimov, who was described as its chief press officer, and said that his comments were not supported by the club, Reuters reported Wednesday.
The Azerbaijani team said that Ibrahimov had been traumatized while watching footage of the conflict, including the deaths of women and children in Azeri cities, and that he regretted his comments, according to Reuters.
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