Sport24.az
"You should never look down on any opponent. In football, respect for the opponent comes first."
Sport24.az reports that this was said by Emrah Çelikel, the CEO of "Qarabağ" and a member of the club's Board of Directors, in his statement to Telegraf, while commenting on the statements of Gigi Becali, the owner of the Romanian representative FCSB.
According to the draw held on July 21, if "Qarabağ" defeats Ireland's "Shelbourne" and FCSB defeats North Macedonia's "Shkendija", the winning teams will face each other in the third qualifying round of the Champions League.
After the draw, Becali made a degrading statement about Azerbaijani football and its representative: "We have a good chance. How can you say you want to reach the Champions League if you can't beat "Qarabağ"? They are not at our level, and their football cannot be compared to our football. They have lost players, lost rhythm. We will crush them! It's good that we will play the first match at home - we will win 2:0 or 3:0 to secure a place in the play-offs."
Çelikel, who said that he was familiar with the statement of the FCSB official, reminded that the Romanian representative had already lost 0:1 to "Shkendija" in the first match of the second qualifying round: "Becali made this statement before the match they lost. I can say that respect for the opponent comes first. We are currently thinking about today's game. We can only talk and think about the next stage after the return match with "Shelbourne". In general, we go to every game to achieve the highest result."
When asked, "Maybe Becali made this statement because they won against "Qarabağ" in Baku with a score of 3:2 in the Europa League last season, and don't you think he has been disrespectful to your club?" the CEO of the Aghdam club reacted like this: "You have to ask him that. I think that by paying attention to such statements, we can deviate from our goal. We have always said our word on the field."
