Azerbaijan Judo Federation

What it is

The Azerbaijan Judo Federation governs judo in a country that has made the sport a national priority. Its own history dates the body to 1972, when the Soviet sports committee decided to spread judo and the Republic Judo Federation was created; the first competitions in Azerbaijan followed that November.^[1]

Rashad Nabiyev was first elected in November 2021 at a conference held in the Ministry of Youth and Sport's own building, and re-confirmed at an extraordinary conference in October 2025. He is recorded in that reporting as a serving government minister. The executive committee includes two Olympic judo champions, Elnur Mammadli and Nazim Huseynov.^[2] [3]

How the national team is selected

Azerbaijan is the one Caucasus federation researched here that publishes its written selection rules, in a document titled "Criteria for division into groups within the national teams and for dispatch to competitions."^[4]

Its central feature is a three-tier national team — an elite squad, a second or challenger squad, and a third developing squad — designed so that training, camp and competition programmes can be individualised by tier. Placement in a tier, rather than a single all-or-nothing selection, is what determines an athlete's programme and which competitions they are sent to.^[4]

Above the federation, Azerbaijani law is unusually explicit and worth stating precisely: a republic sports federation is defined as a body that has passed state accreditation and whose purposes include forming the national teams; and national teams are defined as collectives formed by the federations and approved by the relevant executive authority. The State conducts national-team preparation on the federations' submission.^[5]

So in Azerbaijani law the national team is formed by the federation and then confirmed by the State — selection is not a private decision but a legally defined act with a state approval step. Azerbaijan's sporting-rank system is set out here.