Vanetsyan Ready to Resign if Entire Executive Committee Does

The FAFA movement, representing fans of the Armenian national football team, has detailed a discussion with the President of the Football Federation of Armenia, Arthur Vanetsyan, which took place on November 21, prior to the extraordinary meeting of the FFAr Executive Committee.

“The events occurring in Armenian football over the last three months, the prevailing atmosphere, and internal disagreements have had a direct impact on the performance of the Armenian national team, culminating in the match against Italy. We consider it premature to look for a scapegoat in the political conflict between Arthur Vanetsyan and the members of the Executive Committee; at the same time, it is evident that this conflict is causing ongoing harm to our football. Given the above, we believe that both Arthur Vanetsyan and the entire Executive Committee should resign in succession,” the statement reads.

A crucial issue is the filtering of the FFAr assembly (the highest authority of the FFAr that elects both the president and members of the executive committee), as the majority of the 35 registered public organizations here have an unclear origin, some of which are inactive and serve merely a symbolic role, having emerged through the light hand of former FFAr president Ruben Hayrapetyan for narrow personal interests.

Members of the governing council of the “First Armenian Front” movement met with the FFAr president before the executive committee meeting and proposed the following sequence of steps: filtering the NGOs that are members of the FFAr assembly to form an impartial and genuine football authority, the resignation of the FFAr president, and the dissolution of the executive committee.

We believe that politicians and individuals unrelated to football should not be part of the executive committee, nor should club owners be involved in order to prevent unequal conditions in Armenian club football.

During the meeting with members of the governing council of the “First Armenian Front” movement, Arthur Vanetsyan stated that he is ready to accept our call for resignation, provided that the members of the executive committee also leave, and the filtering and cleansing of NGOs of unclear origin and non-football-related organizations from the FFAr assembly is conducted, which are equally important points of our demands.

The requirement of this statement must be fulfilled as soon as possible; there is no other way,” says the FAFA statement.

The FFAr Executive Committee's extraordinary meeting is ongoing.