Drone delays Europa League match between F91 Dudelange and FK Qarabag
Friday 4 October 2019 10:05, UK
The Europa League match between F91 Dudelange and FK Qarabag was delayed when a drone carrying what appeared to be a political flag was flown above the pitch.
The incident happened in the first half of the Group A game - which Qarabag won 4-1 - and a delay of more than 15 minutes followed the appearance of the drone.
The drone was carrying a flag appeared to be that of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked separatist region within Azerbaijan.
Dudelange issued a swift apology and vowed to investigate the incident.
"We apologise to [our] guests from Azerbaijan," the club tweeted. "We have nothing to do with this provocation. We'll figure [it] out!"
Although the Nagorno-Karabakh area is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, it is an independently-run, ethnically-Armenian enclave which came into existence after a conflict between the two countries in 1988.
Qarabag were originally a team from the city of Agdam in Nagorno-Karabakh, but they moved to Baku in 1993.
Both countries signed a ceasefire in 1994 but the war has never technically ended - in 2016 dozens were killed in the region.
Armenia international Henrikh Mkhitaryan elected not to travel to Baku with Arsenal for the 2018-19 final against Chelsea in May, having also sat out a 3-0 away win over Qarabag in last season's group stage.
