Artsakh

 

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vs. Padania (2:0) | CONIFA EFC | 2019 in Artsakh

This is an Artsakh national team shirt that is matchworn, at least from preparation matches to the 2019 European Football Cup of Artsakh. In the tournament, #16 was left free, which is why this shirt was handed over to me as a gift. It is, without any doubt, one of the most emotional shirts I could possibly own. If you want to just read the happy "hooray I got a new shirt" posts, skip this.

On June 8 in 2019, I woke up in Stepanakert, the capital of the self-declared Republic of Artsakh. It was a beautiful sunny day and one of the less intense days during the ongoing CONIFA European Football Cup, which I helped organising. As every morning, I went to the little house in Stepanakert that was CONIFAs official office to check in with the local volunteers and my peers from the organising committee. I then quickly proceeded to the Republic Stadium, the main stadium in town, to see the placement match between then reigning European Champion Padania and host Artsakh. Both teams were bitterly disappointed with their performance, battling out place 5 today, despite both starting the tournament with the aspiration to win it. 

I watched parts of the match, gave a few more interviews in the stands, shook some hands and ultimately congratulated the Artsakhis for at least securing the fifth place - and tried to cheer up the Padanians following their worst ever tournament performance. I then proceeded to meet Mher Avanesyan, the coach and FA president of Artsakh, in the small building that contained the locker rooms. In a mix of German, English, Russian and Armenian we tried to somehow chat. It did not work well, but it ended in him handing me over a plastic bag with this shirt, both of us smiling and sharing a brief hug. I knew Mher since 2014, in person, and we have both gone quite a long way since, partly together, to be here today - as two key people in bringing this tournament on.

On this day, we both had no idea how historic this piece of fabric would be. How historical this tournament would be. It was the last CONIFA tournament I was involved in. It was the last major CONIFA tournament until this day (bar a three-team Asian Cup). It was the last time an Artsakh national team would play. It was the last time Mher would coach his country. It was all smiles, sun, laughter and cheers from the stands. It was a perfect week in and for Artsakh. It was a perfect week in Artsakh for CONIFA. And yet, it was the beginning of the end of both - Artsakh and CONIFA. 

Artsakh was an unrecognized Republic inhabited by Armenians and located between Azerbaijan and Armenian. It was named Nagorno-Karabakh until 2018ish. The UN always considered it to be part of Azerbaijan, but let's not get lost in international law here. It had roughly 150,000 inhabitants and was closely linked to Armenia, the only neighbor it shared an open border with. That changed in 2020, when Azerbaijan assaulted the region and bombarded it for weeks and ultimately ethnically cleansed the entire region of any Armenian life. Today, it is a military exclusion that is largely uninhabited. I cannot tell you how much it hurts to write these words. Having been in Artsakh in 2014 and then again in 2019, I made friends there and met hundreds of more people than that. I am still sometimes waking up asking myself if the nice elderly lady that made my breakfast in the hotel and always tried to speak a few words with me is now dead or a refugee. I hope she is fine. I just hope they are all fine. Even if I know they are not. 

CONIFA was an organisation running football events for places like Artsakh from 2013 to 2019. I was involved back then. The organisation grew rapidly and attracted some of the brightest minds in the football world to work with it. Then it collapsed, rapidly. It lost 70% of the people working at it - and almost all the bright minds. It lost half of its original members, especially in Africa and Oceania. It lost all sponsors and any media attention it ever had. Most importantly, however, it fails to deliver events of the size of the Artsakh tournament these days. Tournaments that people like the displaced Artsakhis need more than ever. 

I am sorry this turned dark when describing Artsakh and its fate. Believe me, I would love to paint a less dark picture, but I cannot sugarcoat ethnic cleansing and mass displacement either. I am also sorry this turned almost cynical when describing CONIFA. I would love to cheer on the organisation, for the team's sake alone, but unfortunately, it is now constantly and massively failing these teams. Teams, players and human beings that need them, dearly, but are consumed in a complete shitshow of grandiose words and speeches and zero actions. Actually, I am not sorry. Some things need to be spelled out, even if this is just a football shirt blog.