AFFA official assigned to qualifying match of UEFA Conference League

UEFA has appointed head of AFFA's Match Operation Department Emin Jafarov as the UEFA delegate of the Maribor (Slovenia)-Universitatea Craiova (Romania) match, Azernews reports.

The match will be played on July 25 at Ljudski stadium (22:30,Baku time.) within the second qualifying round of the UEFA Conference League. The main referee of the match will be Danish Mads Kristoffersen.

The UEFA Conference League is an annual football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It is the third tier of continental club football in Europe, behind the second-tier Europa League, and the first-tier Champions League.

The competition is primarily contested by teams from lower-ranked UEFA member associations. No teams qualify directly to the group stage, with 10 teams eliminated in the Europa League play-offs and the rest coming from the Conference League qualifiers.

The winners of the competition are awarded a position in the Europa League the following season, unless they qualify for the Champions League.

The 2024–25 UEFA Conference League is the fourth season of the UEFA Conference League, Europe's tertiary club football tournament organised by UEFA.

This will be the first UEFA Conference League played under a new format involving a 36-team league stage.

The new format also does not allow teams to transfer from the Europa League to the Conference League knockout stage, and thus Conference League winners (Olympiacos in the 2023–24 edition) cannot defend their title. From this season, the competition is renamed to UEFA Conference League from the UEFA Europa Conference League.

The final will be played in Stadion Wroc?aw in Wroclaw, Poland. The winners of the tournament will automatically qualify for the 2025–26 UEFA Europa League league stage, unless they qualify for the 2025–26 UEFA Champions League through their league performance.