UEFA president Ceferin explains decision to choose Baku for Europa League final

  28 May 2019    Read: 2879
  UEFA president Ceferin explains decision to choose Baku for Europa League final

In an interview with Der Spiegel, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has explained why they chose Baku for the 2019 UEFA Europa League final.

“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 because of that? As far as I know, the clubs even returned some tickets because they couldn't sell them all. By the way, I was told that Easyjet 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 support fans traveling to the finals,” he said.

The UEFA president continued: “Of course, Baku is far away from London. But when we decided the finals location, we couldn't have known that both teams would be coming from England.”

Ceferin also touched upon Arsenal player of Armenian origin Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s refusal to arrive in Baku for “safety concerns”.

“Azerbaijan provided guarantees and a thorough security plan. In the end, it was the player's decision not to travel,” he added.

 


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