UEFA’s president: "Azerbaijan provided guarantees and a thorough security plan"
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  • 22:29 27 May 2019

UEFA’s president: "Azerbaijan provided guarantees and a thorough security plan"

UEFA’s president Aleksander Ceferin in an interview with Der Spiegel has explained why they chose Baku, Azerbaijan for Europa League Final, ONA reports.

“Why? Because people live there. They love football, We have to develop football everywhere, not just in England and Germany.  Do you think that fans in Baku don’t deserve to see live football? As far as I know, the clubs even returned some tickets because they couldn’t sell them all. I was told that Easiest raised airfare for the flights. Does anyone ask them? It’s always supposed to be UEFA’s fault. That’s populism. How about providing a constructive proposal, a fund, to which every club contributes to supporting fans traveling to the finals,” President Cefferin said.

He explained that of course, Baku is far away from London. "But when we decided the location of the final, we couldn’t have known that both teams would be coming from England.”

He also touched upon Armenian origin footballer Henrik Mkhitaryan's missing the match with security pretext.

“Azerbaijan provided guarantees and a thorough security plan. In the end, it was the player’s decision not to travel,” Ceferin said.

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