Williams criticised for opening ceremony gig
By Robert Mendick, Helen Chandler wilde and Alec Luhn in St Petersburg
ROBBIE WILLIAMS, the pop star, has been accused of “shamefully legitimising” Vladimir Putin’s “thuggish” regime after he agreed to perform at the World Cup opening ceremony.
Williams, 44, was unveiled yesterday as the headline act that kicks off the tournament on Thursday. Campaigners have urged him to pull out.
Williams said in an official Fifa statement it was his “boyhood dream” to open the World Cup in front of 80,000 fans in Moscow. “I’m so happy and excited to be going back to Russia for such a unique performance,” he said.
He will be paid hundreds of thousands by Russian backers and Fifa for the performance. British dignitaries, including the Royal family and politicians, have stayed away in protest at the nerve agent attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury in March. Bill Browder, an investment fund manager whose lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in police custody in Moscow while investigating corruption, said: “Robbie Williams is doing a shameful thing… I would like to introduce him to Sergei Magnitsky’s widow and son so he can understand the regime he is legitimising.”
Stephen Doughty, a Labour MP, said: “At a time when Russian jets are bombing civilians in Syria, the Russian state is poisoning people on the streets of Britain, as well as persecuting LGBT+ people in Chechnya and elsewhere – let alone attempting to undermine our democracies – I can only assume he will speak out on these issues?”
John Woodcock, MP for Barrow and Furness, said: “Robbie Williams is handing Vladimir Putin a PR coup by performing at the thuggish pariah’s opening ceremony.”
Williams’s spokesman said the star had no comment to make.