In the city of Lvov, Ukraine, there was a mass brawl with the participation of Armenian and Azerbaijani sportsmen. Today, Aravot.am asked the Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs, Gabriel Ghazaryan, how he reacts to the incident and how he will explain it.
The Minister replied, “First of all, the federation that operates in Armenia is not registered in the International Federation; secondly, we certainly are aware of what happened in Ukraine and have tried to be next to our citizens. But there are problems with the recognition of this federation; everything should be clarified. We are developing a project with the Ministry of Justice that all federations operating in Armenia should be licensed to avoid such incidents.” To our question that when they are not registered, they do not have a license, it turns out that you do not have any leverage, the minister replied, “Naturally, we have our leverage, but in this sphere you are right. If it is not registered, you will be surprised, but we did not know about the existence of this Federation. Is it right? I think, not. There are many sports federations that we are not aware of them.” To our question that if this Federation were licensed, what we could achieve resulted by the same incident, the minister replied, “Every team that goes abroad represents the Republic of Armenia. We cannot allow anyone who wants will go and act in the name of our state; it’s not right. It will be regulated.”
To the question of whether this team was illegal to represent Armenia in Ukraine, the minister replied, yes, they have gone as an NGO, of which we are unaware. The minister also said that by the instruction of the Prime Minister, they have reduced the number of vehicles from 30 to 14.
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