“He wasn’t my cousin, he was my brother. We grew up in the same house,” said Azerbaijani national team member Mahir Emreli about his cousin Sabit Agayev, whose body was found on November 1.
“That night I got the news. It was a terrible shock for me. We lived in the same house. Whenever we went somewhere, I would introduce him to friends as my brother, because we really were like brothers. This news shook me deeply. I learned about it that night and couldn’t sleep until morning. When I played for Konyaspor, he was with me and we stayed in the same house.
One reason I dyed my hair blonde for a while was also because of Sabit. He was a fan of Galatasaray footballer Mauro Icardi and asked me to make my hair blonde. I did. Sabit himself was a footballer; he played for Simurq and had many games with the reserve team. But later, after the Zagatala club disbanded, he left football. He had a job and everything was fine. I have no idea why he committed suicide. He was a very cheerful, humorous person. Even his messages were so lively that you’d think no one could be happier. What happened… I don’t know. He was married and had a 4–5-month-old child. Yet he left us all heartbroken. I can’t get over it,” Emreli told Qafqazinfo.
Mahir Emreli also addressed rumors about his late cousin: “I even drove his wedding car. He would tell me if he had any problem. I don’t know why this happened. Everyone says he had debts, but those are just stories. No one can say he had debts. He had moved out of a rented apartment 2–3 weeks earlier. But everyone says he lived in a rented place, these are all rumors. Only his family knows the real situation. We can’t interfere.”
