Drone delays Dudelange vs Qarabag in EL match.



The Europa League match between F91 Dudelange and FK Qarabag was delayed when a drone carrying what appeared to be a political flag was flown above the pitch.

The incident happened in the first half of the Group A game - which Qarabag won 4-1 - and a delay of more than 15 minutes followed the appearance of the drone. The drone was carrying a flag appeared to be that of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked separatist region within Azerbaijan.


Dudelange issued a swift apology and vowed to investigate the incident.

"We apologise to [our] guests from Azerbaijan," the club tweeted. "We have nothing to do with this provocation. We'll figure [it] out!"

Although the Nagorno-Karabakh area is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan, it is an independently-run, ethnically-Armenian enclave which came into existence after a conflict between the two countries in 1988.

Qarabag were originally a team from the city of Agdam in Nagorno-Karabakh, but they moved to Baku in 1993. Both countries signed a ceasefire in 1994 but the war has never technically ended - in 2016 dozens were killed in the region.

Armenia international Henrikh Mkhitaryan elected not to travel to Baku with Arsenal for the 2018-19 final against Chelsea in May, having also sat out a 3-0 away win over Qarabag in last season's group stage.

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