AFP: Euro 2020 in Azerbaijan, strongman's 'vanity project'

PanARMENIAN.Net - Ahead of Euro 2020, critics of Azerbaijan's authoritarian leader Ilham Aliyev are accusing him of capitalizing on the country's hosting duties to whitewash widespread corruption and rampant rights violations, AFP says in a fresh article (via Business Recorder).

Activists in the ex-Soviet country and abroad have long accused Aliyev of attempting to gloss over abuses, and are now saying he is leveraging football's European Championship and other international sports events to disguise abuses against critics and endemic corruption.

"Azerbaijan has a track record of using mega sports events to whitewash its abysmal human rights record," Giorgi Gogia, Human Rights Watch associate director for Europe and Central Asia, told AFP.

Euro 2020 "is little more than a vanity project or window dressing by an authoritarian government to attract international attention".

The oil-rich country on the Caspian Sea is set to host three Euro 2020 group games in June featuring Switzerland, Turkey and Wales and a quarter-final in July. The fixtures, which are due to be held at the 68,000-capacity Olympic Stadium in the capital, Baku, come on the back of several other high-profile sporting events in Azerbaijan in recent years.

In 2019, British teams Arsenal and Chelsea played there in the Europa League final, and in 2015 the inaugural European Games -- a multi-discipline event contested by athletes from across Europe -- were held in Baku. The capital is also scheduled later this year to host the Formula 1 Grand Prix for the fifth time since 2016.

The head of Azerbaijan's sports department Farid Mansurov said that "hosting major sports competitions is aimed at promoting Azerbaijan's image as a sports country."

But journalist Mehman Aliyev, who heads the country's sole independent news agency, Turan, told AFP "there is no transparency whatsoever about the government's expenditures on sports infrastructure and on hosting sports events."

Khadija Ismayilova, a journalist who spent years in prison for reporting on alleged corruption in the Aliyev family, said Euro 2020 "is just an additional boost for his political capital," said Ismayilova.

"Aliyev is a zealous sports fan, he is excited about organizing top sporting events. But his claims that his whim is helping to improve the country's international image are totally wrong," she added.

"Azerbaijan doesn't exist on the world's sports map. Azerbaijan doesn't have a single athlete recognized worldwide."