A rather funny clause from the World Football governing body FIFA, has ruled out the possibility of Arsenal Armenian Midfielder, Henrikh Mkhitaryan from participating in the finals of the Europa League between Chelsea and Arsenal taking place in the Olympic Stadium, Baku, Azerbaijan.
Due to a unique political tension between the Azerbaijan-Armenia, the midfielder will rather sit at the confines of his home and see the game played live on TV.
This isn't the first time such cases has been reported as various footballers have suffered same fate in one way or the other.[...] It‘s the kind of game that doesn’t come along very often for us players and I must admit, it hurts me a lot to miss it.I will be cheering my teammates on! Let’s bring it home @Arsenal ๐๐ช๐ผ๐ช๐ผ๐ช๐ผ #uel #final #arsenal #chelsea #AFC #COYG pic.twitter.com/gnDA6oyolw— Henrikh Mkhitaryan (@HenrikhMkh) May 21, 2019
Sometime, Israel's Yossi Benayoun was dropped by West Ham before a training camp in Dubai. Also, the Iranian FA regularly pressures players to not play club matches in Israel. Their captain Masoud Shojaei almost missed a World Cup over it.
Recently, in the UEFA Champions League away group stage game, Liverpool had to drop Kosovo-born Xherdan Shaqiri from travelling with the team to Red Star Belgrade, fuelled by his 'eagle hand' celebration during the 2018 World Cup against Russia.
Same political cold war covers regions like: Ukraine - Russia, Kosovo/Serbia - Bosnia. There are a few countries whose teams are kept apart by FIFA & UEFA in club and international qualifying draws because of same political tensions.
Tags: UEFA, FIFA, Arsenal, Mkhitaryan.
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