After a four-year break Armenia’s longtime champion is again participating in the CIS and Baltic Countries Cup in Russia – a traditional tournament held since 1993 in the middle of January that brings together the best teams from former Soviet republics.

FC Pyunik Yerevan was banned indefinitely from participating in the competition after refusing to play a semifinal match against Azerbaijan’s Neftchi Baku at the 2006 tournament, citing security concerns. Since then runners-up in the national championship played in the Cup every year instead of Pyunik until the decision late last year to allow the Armenian champion to resume its participation.

All former Soviet republics, except Georgia, had fielded their participants in the tournament being held in Moscow 15-25 January. They are joined by a guest team from Finland, HIK, and a combined team of Russian clubs. The sixteen teams are divided into four groups, two of which qualify for playoffs.

In the current tournament, Pyunik, mostly using reserve players or international players on trial before the 2010 season start, lost in the opening match (0-2) to FK Ekranas (Lithuania) on January 16 and 2-3 to FC Bunyodkor (Uzbekistan) on January 17. Pyunik’s rival in the last Group D game is FC Dacia (Moldova) on January 19. The Armenian team, however, has lost all chances for qualification from the group.

FC Pyunik has won the Armenian Premier League 12 times, including nine titles in a row since 2001. The Armenian club’s first trouble at the CIS and Baltic Countries Cup was in 2005 when the organizers could not avoid an Armenia/Azerbaijan encounter in a quarterfinal. (The two South Caucasus neighbors are locked in a bitter dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh that led to a 1991-1994 war and has not been resolved to date.) The match at the Moscow arena in January 2005 was held in a tense atmosphere (including in the stands, as the Russian capital is known to be home to large Armenian and Azerbaijani communities) and ended 0-2 to the Azeri champion. The following year the same teams were scheduled to play in a semifinal, but Pyunik refused to play citing “lack of security guarantees”, including for numerous Armenian fans in the stands, and withdrew from the tournament. The Armenian club was not allowed to participate in the competitions in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

In the current tournament Azerbaijan is represented by FC Baku. The organizers had drawn the schedule so as to avoid the potential clash of the Armenian and Azerbaijani teams at least until the semifinals.