Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

The match with Karabakh FC should have been held in Karabakh, not in Baku, President of German Eintracht (Frankfurt) FC Peter Fischer said on August 22

In an interview to the official website of the Association of Football Federations of Azerbaijan (AFFA), Peter Fischer said that he was very sorry about this.

"This game should be their home game. That is, the match should have been held not in Baku, but in Karabakh. However, Karabakh is under Armenian occupation. I should note that this is the result of Armenia's occupation policy that does not allow our rival team to receive us in their field. Of course, this is an undesirable situation," Fischer said.

Armenia occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions, after laying territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor that caused a brutal war in the early 1990s. Long-standing efforts by US, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.

Eintracht's President also noted that, the development of Azerbaijani football has been observed in late five or six years.

Touching upon today's match, Fischer said that Eintracht must be careful.

"This is my third visit to Azerbaijan. For the first time I arrived in Baku in 2006. I'm traveling to a number of countries, but I have never seen a city, which has developed and become beautiful within a short period of time," Fischer said.

A team of Polish referees will be in charge of the first game between Azerbaijan`s Karabakh and German Eintracht Frankfurt in the two-legged encounter of the play-off round of the UEFA Europa League.

Main referee of the match is Szymon Marciniak.

The match will take place at Tofigh Bahramov Stadium and will start at 21:00 (local time).

More than 27,000 tickets have been sold op to now. It is expected that all the ticket will be sold till the beginning of the game.

The return game will be held in Frankfurt on August 29.