The European Games
The inaugural edition, running from 12-28 June next year, will feature 6,000 athletes competing in 20 sports. The jury remains out on whether it will find a permanent place in the sporting calendar, with athletics and swimming in particular reserving judgment. For this first edition, athletics will be a third-tier event and swimming a junior competition. But the standard in some sports is likely to be close to world-class and organisers hope innovative new events such as three-on-three basketball and beach football will attract the interest of television viewers.
Euro 2020
Azerbaijan’s biggest sporting coup was capturing four matches (three group games and a quarter‑final) in Michel Platini’s grand plan to spread the European Championship across the continent in 2020. The imposing new 68,000-capacity national stadium, being hastily assembled at a cost of £453m and bankrolled by the state oil company, will be ready well before the tournament and was a big factor in swinging the vote.
Atlético Madrid
When Diego Costa and company stormed to a surprise La Liga title last season, they did so in shirts bearing the legend: “Azerbaijan: Land of Fire”. That was the first exposure many football fans had to the oil-rich state on the banks of the Caspian Sea. The Azerbaijan FA’s general secretary, Elkhan Mammadov, who said the €12m season-and-a-half sponsorship scheme was bankrolled by a patriotic private businessman, thinks it has been a powerful tool in raising the profile of the country among ordinary fans.
Socar Uefa sponsorship
Just as the visibility around Europe of Gazprom, Russia’s gas giant, soared thanks to its Champions League sponsorship deal, so Azerbaijan’s state-owned oil company hopes to boost its brand with the biggest national team sponsorship deal Uefa has signed. It is one of the first agreed under a new model where headline sponsorship of Euro 2016 is bundled in with perimeter board signage from 32 of its federations. Socar is understood to be paying around €80m across four years for the deal.
Formula One
Just the latest example of Bernie Ecclestone’s drive to tilt the F1 map towards countries prepared to pay handsomely for the privilege of using the sport to put their countries in the shop window, the first Baku Grand Prix will take place in 2016. “I don’t think many governments use [F1] enough,” Ecclestone said in a revealing interview recently. We open the eyes of the world and they don’t see it or use it. I mean, who had ever heard of Bahrain before we went there?” The street circuit will be designed by Hermann Tilke, responsible for the Abu Dhabi and Singapore tracks, and will showcase the rapid development along the bay in Baku as well as other landmarks. The race is expected to be called the Formula One Grand Prix of Europe.
Uefa’s 2016 Under-17 Championship
Hosting age-specific championships is seen as an important stepping stone towards securing their senior brethren and building links within Uefa. Agreeing to host the 16-team tournament in May 2016 undoubtedly helped when it came to winning four Euro 2020 matches. Azerbaijan will qualify automatically as hosts.
2013 Women’s Under-17 World Cup
Mammadov said hosting the women’s tournament had shown the country could deliver. He said it also helped boost women’s football in Azerbaijan and change attitudes in the country. “When we introduced women’s football development in 2010 we were criticised by some parts of the country,” he said. “But in one year’s time, when we had created the opportunity for women to play football, we started in 2011 with 25 registered female players. Now we have more than 5,000 girls playing football.”
2014 Rhythmic Gymnastics European Championships
The event, featuring gymnasts from 30 nations, took place in May in the newly opened National Gymnastics Arena. There was a diplomatic row when it was claimed that the organisers forced Belarus to drop music written by an Armenian composer. The Azerbaijanis said the claim was not true and was Armenian propaganda.
Baku Cup
The first professional tennis tournament to be held in Azerbaijan was inaugurated in 2011. The annual WTA tour event has been won by Elina Svitolina for the past two years.
Olympic Games
Baku failed at the shortlisting stage in its ambitious bid to stage the 2020 Olympics, being cut from the longlist along with Doha. Mammadov, who was a member of the bid team, said the experience would stand them in good stead if they tried again for 2024 or 2028. “By bidding, you increase your experience and build a network. You are building a foundation for future bidding processes,” he said. He believes huge investment in venues for the European Games and Euro 2020 could help its cause in a bidding environment where the IOC is likely prioritise low-cost, low-risk bids.