Henrikh Mkhitaryan is set to miss Borussia Dortmund's Europa League trip to Azerbaijan because of security concerns, the club have said.
Dortmund face Azerbaijani club Gabala in the Europa League on Thursday, but are likely to leave the Armenian midfielder in Germany because of an ongoing conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The region, along with some adjacent territory, has been under the control of Armenian soldiers and local ethnic Armenian forces since a 1994 ceasefire ended a six-year war.
Violence has nevertheless broken out sporadically since.
"Mkhitaryan will most likely not be on board our flight to Baku," Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke told German tabloid Bild earlier this week.
However, Borussia Dortmund have not yet made a final decision on whether they will exclude the in-form midfielder from the trip, a club spokesperson told ESPN FC.
The five-time Armenian footballer of the year has visited the disputed region several times and it remains unclear whether he will be granted a visa to enter Azerbaijan.
In September, the Azerbaijan embassy to Germany told ESPN FC that "the list of unwanted persons in the Republic of Azerbaijan refers to those, independent of nationality or profession, who have visited the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories."
They added that "football is a team sport" and therefore Dortmund's trip to Baku "could be regarded as a trip of a whole team rather than that of individual persons."
Watzke said: "There are safety concerns and, should a player not feel right about it and have fear, we have to take it into account."
Dortmund have contacted the Azerbaijan embassy about visas for the travelling party, and the embassy told ESPN FC the "squad and the other members of the team will get their visa directly upon their arrival at Baku airport."
When asked about whether that would allow Mkhitaryan access to Azerbaijan, the embassy said: "Borussia Dortmund asked for visas for the whole team, and not for individual persons. Thus the embassy's reply also referred to the whole team. What is sure is that the team will get their visa at Baku airport."
In late August, UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino said at a news conference in Monaco that "at the end it's always the decision of the state whether visas can be granted or not -- it's not up to UEFA to grant or not grant visas."