Azerbaijan's wrestling team is frustrated with its federation and is threatening to boycott the 2017 World Championships unless its members are paid their salaries, which the team says it hasn't received for months. 

According to the Azerbaijani news source Haqqin.az, the men's freestyle and Greco-Roman teams held a protest on Friday, with Olympic medalists Haji Aliyev and Togrul Asgarov in attendance. The wrestlers are refusing to participate in training camps, and if they are not satisfied by the federation in time they are threatening to skip the UWW World Championships, held at the end of August in Paris. 

Haqqin.az also reported that although the Greco-Roman representatives appear agitated about the lack of payments, the men's freestyle head coach, Firdovsi Umudov, is hopeful that a deal will be worked out in time. 

Money issues have plagued the Azerbaijan Wrestling Federation lately. Olympic gold and silver medalist Togrul Asgarov was rumored to have been looking to change federations, potentially jumping ship for Turkmenistan, due to lack of salary payments. Additionally, the 2017 Golden Grand Prix, an international tournament held annually in Azerbaijan's capital city of Baku, was canceled amid more rumors of financial difficulties.

Azerbaijan's economic woes extend far beyond its wrestling teams. Situated on the western bank of the oil rich Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan's economy has been in a tailspin lately largely due to global oil prices suffering an extended slump. 

Once one of the economic leaders of the countries in the historically underdeveloped Caucasus region, Azerbaijan GDP per capita has plummeted by nearly half in recent years, bringing the standard of living in the country down to that of its neighbors, Armenia and Georgia. 


Source: World Bank via Google

If the Azerbaijani wrestlers do not attend the World Championships, it would be a major blow to the quality of competition. Azerbaijan is a perennial contender for a team title, and wrestlers from their team occupy spots in the top 10 of Flo's International Mens Freestyle rankings at almost every weight class.