Azerbaijani coach unapologetic after attacking referee Exclusive interview

For two days now, the European sports world has been buzzing about the incident between a coach from Azerbaijan and a referee from Macedonia, which took place at the European School Championships held in the Serbian city of Zlatibor.

Let me remind you that despite the clear advantage of the Azerbaijani boxer Yusif Aghakishiyev, who was just one step away from the gold medal in the final bout against the Serbian boxer Viktor Majstorovic, the ring judge Stefan Cubalevski simply stole the victory from our boxer. Realising that the huge advantage of the Azerbaijani was about to end in a knockout of Maistrovich, the referee decided, as athletes say, to “strangle” our boxer with penalty points and outright stole the victory from him.

In response, Yusif’s seconds, the technical director of our team, Hamza Avazov, who was invited from Uzbekistan by our federation, almost strangled the referee in the literal sense of the word, furiously attacking him right after the verdict was announced. This led to a fight in the ring, which was only calmed down with great difficulty.

As a result, the Azerbaijani boxer was stripped of even the silver medal, and the fate of Hamza Avazov will be decided in the coming days by the European and Azerbaijani Boxing Federations.

Caliber.Az managed to get in touch with Hamza Avazov and ask him a few questions.

— Hamza, please explain why you acted this way. Couldn't you have simply filed a protest after the bout?

— First of all, protests are not filed at tournaments of this level, like the European School Championships. And this leads to the kind of refereeing lawlessness we saw — something I’ve witnessed more than once.

Secondly, it’s upsetting that this kind of blatant injustice usually happens to Azerbaijani boxers. These are the athletes who are often the favourites at nearly every competition and in every age category. But this kind of injustice can seriously damage the fragile psyche of teenagers! That’s why I couldn’t hold myself back...

— Do you have any regrets about what happened? What were you thinking in that moment? Surely you understood that you could be banned for life, or at least suspended from boxing for several years…

— No, at that moment I definitely wasn’t thinking about disqualification! The only thing on my mind was what would happen to our boxer — a boy who had just suffered severe psychological trauma because this referee shamelessly stole his victory in front of everyone!

— Still, many victories have been stolen from our boxers over the past three decades, yet not a single coach — local or foreign — has ever acted the way you did…

— You know, I can’t speak for what’s happened in the past, but I do know what will happen after this. I hope that from now on, referees will think twice before trying to unfairly suppress Azerbaijani boxers or engage in lawless behaviour like what we saw in this match. I’d like to believe they’ve realised that you can’t treat our athletes this way — especially since, let me repeat, Azerbaijani boxers are very strong and always contenders for victory at any level. I’m confident that after this, referees will show Azerbaijan more respect!

— And what’s going to happen to you now?

— I don’t know. Time will tell. But I have no regrets about what happened and I’m sure I won’t be left without work.

By Vugar Vugarli, exclusively for Caliber.Az