Henrikh Mkhitaryan: Missing European final amid security concerns

Yesterday it was reported that Henrikh Mkhitaryan would miss the Europa League final against Chelsea amid security concerns.

According to BBC, this is why Henrikh Mkhitaryan decided that it would be best if he did not travel with the team to Baku, Azerbaijan,

"“Having considered all current options, we had to take the tough decision for me not to travel with the squad to the Europa League final,” said Mkhitaryan. “It’s the kind of game that doesn’t come along very often and I admit, it hurts a lot to miss it.” As a result of political tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Mkhitaryan has missed club matches played in Azerbaijan in the past."

Obviously, the Armenian midfielder is a key player for Arsenal, and losing him will significantly hurt their chances against their London counterparts. I do not want this to be a news article, but rather my opinion about why this sort of thing should never happen.

A player should never have to sit out a match, especially one so large and important because of his own personal safety, as well as the teams. Could you imagine if an NBA player had to sit out of The Finals because of security concerns? That would be headline news, and action would be put into place immediately to make sure it never happened again.

Why was Baku chosen in the first place by the governing body of UEFA? More importantly, why do overseers at FIFA not implement the change?

The other two options to host were in Seville and Istanbul, which are too far safer countries. Coincidence or not, the Baku Olympic Stadium holds 27,370 more people than the next biggest host stadium. UEFA and FIFA needs to make themselves aware of these political climates in order to avoid situations like these, instead of just crunching financial numbers and reports.

In 2007, UEFA President Michael Plantini suggested that no European Final host stadium should hold below an average of 70,000. But that is not how they should be picking these host venues. They need to be responsible and pick venues where hosting will not only help the city itself develop and provide jobs, which is one of their goals, but also to provide a secure place for players to show their craft.

In the end, the game and the players are the most important part of the event. Therefore, their needs should be the priority for these high-ranking officials. This case only proves that UEFA does not really care about situations like these, because they will not change anything.

A similar incident happened this year when Xherdan Shaqiri did not travel to Red Star Belgrade among political tension and gestures Shaqiri had made during last summer’s World Cup. While UEFA could not change the location, they could have added extra security measures to make sure Liverpool could have at least brought him.

People have known for a while that UEFA and FIFA do some shady business, but now Henrikh Mkhitaryan will not get to participate in one of the biggest matches of his entire career. Some players do not even get to sniff a match like this in their entire playing years. Football is often called the beautiful game. This is the dark side of it.