Russian pension protests approved

ON THE eve of the competition, Vladimir Putin and the Russian authorities sprung a surprise on the populace by announcing plans to increase the retirement age.

For males, it is due to go up to 65 from 60. For women, it will rise from 55 to 63. The move, which was explained as a necessary way of increasing tax revenue, didn’t go down well.

To put that in context, the life expectancy for a male in Russia is just under 65 years, a fairly staggering and damning statistic. For women, it’s just over 76.

The problem was that political protests in host cities during the competition were essentially banned by Putin, but this issue has become so divisive that the political hierarchy have been forced to back down.

Thirty union-led events have been given the go-ahead and one of them is in Kazan, which will be active until the quarter-finals.

It’s rare that a decision from Putin meets with such strong levels of disapproval – one poll suggested that 82pc of citizens were against it – and there is an expectation that they might soften the bill in the coming weeks.

Making the announcement as World Cup fever kicked in was interpreted as an attempt to try and bury bad news.

That didn’t work, although there is a cynical opposition view that the initial move was effectively a starting point with shock value and the bill will be softened as a means of showing an empathetic response to the anger.