SPORTSWORLD.AM
Ahead of the Armenia-Georgia match in the UEFA Nations League play-off round on March 20, Sergey Janoyan, co-founder of the First Armenian Front (FAF), posted on his Facebook page.
"I congratulate our futsal team. In the last 2 years, our team has made visible progress. I think Nazaretyan was able to find the right words to motivate and do the right work with the team. I have said approximately the same scheme in the last 2 years, I have suggested regarding the team with Yeghishe Melikyan."
This event should not be underestimated or overestimated.
There are many questions related to local futsal outside of the futsal team, more on that later.
Now for the important part.
Two days ago we were accused of manipulation, specifically manipulation before the national team's match. Today, our fears were justified in our interactions with Georgian fans.
They accuse us of manipulation before the team's game, when they did the unforgivable before the team's main game. To please the Georgians, to satisfy Kobiashvili's pleasures, because he is a member of the UEFA Executive Committee and should lobby for Melikbekyan.
Just in turn
• The topic of our places has been discussed from different places.
• After the current FFA leadership entered the Khanjyan building, we never officially contacted the FFA or sent a letter regarding tickets; our tickets were not a subject of discussion.
• For exactly 20 years, I have been to all of the team's home official and friendly matches without exception. For the first time in the last 20 years, half the stands and more tickets have been allocated to the opponent's fans (which does not include the official delegation).
Now you can hardly imagine the seriousness of this pitiful situation, on the 20th of the month when you enter the stadium you will see half the stands dressed in white fans, you will remember what I wrote. People responded to such a principled game with any possible kindness by giving away an additional 1000 (total of about 2000) tickets to the opponent's fans in a stadium with a capacity of only 14,000, and making our tickets a commodity.
To make it clearer, of the 3702-seat grandstand, according to our calculation, 1989 are for the Georgians /see the black part of the model/. To make it clearer, at Noah's last game in Yerevan, there were + - 1100 fans from Cyprus, who were able to be accommodated in the 900-seat guest section, and in general, the most present were the Polish fans in 2017 - about 1300 people.
• Also, for the first time, there was no sale in one of the stands, the western one, or a symbolic 180 tickets in the 4087-seat stand. It is obvious that a respectable number will be reached for the Georgian delegation. + the presence of numerous law enforcement agencies in the stands, we can already count how many tickets are left for ordinary Armenian fans. The fewest ever for the national team's games.
• Georgia is our only friendly country in the region. Due to the disorganized, short-sighted state of the FFA, there will be hundreds of Georgians in all the stands, and in the northern one there will be a crowd without a fence. This issue should not be exaggerated, but it is a matter of the country's security. Any possible clash can turn into a large-scale one and become a matter of interethnic hostility. I'm not talking about the streets before the game... Unfortunately, this is possible through football... We all need to work towards preventing conflict in Yerevan and Tbilisi.
• Taking advantage of the game's status, ticket prices were increased again.
• Let's get to Tbilisi. The Georgian Football Federation has long announced that we will get the 9th and 10th sections of their 55,000-seat stadium with 2,000 seats /see picture 2/.
Counting the individual chairs, it barely seats 2,000. And that's not even the 5% or 4% that the stadium is legally allowed to accommodate. The whims of the Georgians have been satisfied.
• In conclusion, I want to say that the end of these manipulations and complicated situations is not far off. We will do everything within our power to make our players feel like they are playing at home. We have hardly touched on the national team since the beginning of the resignation process, but such a frivolous attitude towards the team should be the last under the leadership of this FFA."
Written by Sergey Janoyan.