NO COACH FOR THE ARMENIAN NATIONAL FOOTBALL TEAM
Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
Feb 28 2014
28 February 2014 – 2:35pm
David Stepanyan, Yerevan. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
At the end of last year, the Football Federation of Armenia announced
the upcoming friendly match against Russia that will take place in
Krasnodar. Today, however, with the match less than a week away,
not only the Armenian squad for the match against the Russian players
(who were already stated by Fabio Capello) is unknown, but also the
name of the head coach of the Armenian team. The lack of coach is due
to Vardan Minasyan’s refusal to prolong his contract, which expired on
October 31 for the UEFA EURO 2016 qualification period. The 40-year-old
coach prefers a different course for his career, waiting for proposals
from abroad.
Nevertheless, the Football Federation of Armenia (FFA) has declared
its readiness to play a friendly match not only with Russia: on June
6 the Armenian players are to play another friendly match against
Germany. The FFA President, the infamous Armenian oligarch, Republican
Ruben Hayrapetyan, at the final press conference in 2013 attacked the
journalist who asked about the upcoming friendly matches, stating that
“it is silly to talk about friendly matches when there is no one to
steer the team.”
The matches have been announced, but there is no coach. In any case,
there is no information about his identity. Repeated attempts by our
reporters to contact the FFA in order to find out whether the team
has found a coach have failed. The FFA press secretary’s number
“does not exist”, Hayrapetyan’s private number does not respond,
and the Media section on the FFA site is empty.
Since the beginning of 2014 the Armenian media, which had been
flooded with names of the most improbable candidates to be the coach
of the Armenian team, are now keeping silence unanimously. Following
Minasyan’s resignation, the media suggested the names of various
candidates, mostly from South America, the last one was the name of
the Uruguayan Gregorio Perez.
Following the results of the toss of the qualifying tournament
for the European Championship 2016, which first was attended by 24
teams of the continent, Armenia was represented by the FFA Executive
Director Armen Minasyan. Group I, where the Armenian team ended up,
looks impressive. Apart from Armenia, the group includes Portugal,
Serbia, Albania and Denmark. The host country of EURO 2016 – France –
will only participate in the qualifying tournament at the level of
friendly matches.
Note that in the four years of Minasyan’s coaching, the national team
of Armenia achieved a breakthrough, rising from 99th to 30th position
in the FIFA rankings. Therefore, despite the serious competitors,
the Armenian team has a chance to go to France in 2016. And today,
the team led by Henrik Mkhitaryan, Yura Movsisyan, Araz Ozbilis and
Roman Berezovsky especially needs a competent coach who could solve
this serious problem.
The oligarch Hayrapetyan previously publicly stated that the
Federation has no intention of spending too much on inviting a top
coach, preferring to use the “millions of dollars to build football
schools.” According to the agency Pluri Consultoria, the “cost”
of the 30 highest paid football coaches in the world ranges from
2.35 to 17 million dollars. Against this background, the reluctance
of the FFA president to “spend” is most likely due to the lack of
this money in the FFA treasury. Therefore Hayrapetyan and the FFA
Executive Committee crave the return of Vardan Minasyan. The latter
has repeatedly refused to lead the team, waiting for invitations from
foreign clubs. Given that over the past five months Minasyan never
left Armenia, it is still likely that his name will be the one to be
announced at the last moment as the Armenian team coach.
From: Baghdasarian
http://vestnikkavkaza.net/articles/sport/52013.html