FANS FACING A WORLD OF FOOTBALL THUGS AND PREHISTORIC ATTITUDES
IT WAS when the man they call Comanche came marching down the main street of a town near Russia’s Latvian border last summer that you knew it could be carnage at the World Cup, which is now 99 days away. He was the physically intimidating Alexander Shprygin, who takes his nickname from a Native American tribe and was twice expelled from France during Euro 2016 — amid fighting which saw dozens of English supporters attacked by armed, gym-trained Russian gangs. One of those fans, 52-year-old Andrew Bache, is permanently disabled. He was hit over the head with a bar. Shprygin told Sportsmail that Russian fans wanted to dislodge England’s reputation as the world’s No 1 hooligans. ‘You are like a red rag to us,’ he said. An uncomfortable hour in the man’s company felt like a journey into one of the British football firms of the 1970s. British police have spent two years building a relationship with Russian officers which they hope will help prevent the all-out warfare witnessed two
years ago in Marseille. But Shprygin, with his cheerful discussion of fighting, demonstrated that police could have a monumental battle on their hands, if the travelling English contingent cannot be persuaded to desist from anthems about empire and the war. The shiny story that FIFA and president Vladimir Putin want to see propagated is of a nation throwing open its doors. The latest propaganda, disseminated only yesterday, had Putin doing keepy-uppies at the Kremlin. But the infrastructure of this desperately poor nation looks extremely frayed.
revealed only last week that England fans will be encouraged to travel between group games by ‘football special trains’, because there will be very few flights available. Those journeys — from Volgograd to Nizhny Novgorod and on to Kaliningrad, where England face Belgium in the west — are each 20 hours long. Russian officers are determined to confine drinking to designated fan zones. But these carry a serious risk of drink-fuelled disorder. The threat of long prison terms for Russian hooligans may help. Many are clearly intimidated by that prospect. But no kind of legislation can prepare the nation for the deeply unreconstructed outlook on diversity. The Russian streets are far less intimidating than those we encountered in Brazil four years ago, yet this is a very white and monocultural country, where ethnicity is a novelty. There is a genuine risk of players being subjected to racist chants. Moscow’s chief human rights ombudswoman has said nearly 100 cases of racism were recorded between 2014 and 2016 at stadiums across Moscow. It will also be a very different world for women who travel to see England play. Prehistoric, you have to say. A dinner to mark the opening of the Confederations Cup last summer was more like a Miss World contest than a civilised event, as a series of women paraded up to the stage. The main ambassador for the World Cup is Victoria Lopyreva, best known as the 2003 Miss Russia. If the FA had put on an event like that, they would justifiably have been pilloried — the irony being this is the tournament that might have been England’s. Some very significant questions remain unanswered. Will drinking by England supporters be tolerated in public places? When will boisterousness become unacceptable? Russian officers brush off such questions when you collar them at public events. The Moscow force categorically refused
Sportsmail’s requests for an interview, with translator, last summer. Requests to attend the national team’s friendly against Brazil at the Luzhniki Stadium this month have been firmly rejected. ‘Apply through the Brazilian FA,’ said the Russians, who, with the tournament now imminent, are keeping a very tight lid on preparations. As so often when it comes to this vast place, you know only a fraction of the story. The hooligans might brag but it feels like a nation with something to hide.