With Russian fans accused of displaying neo-Nazi banners during the country’s opening World Cup match in Brazil, RT looks into the origins and the current state of Russian football hooliganism.
FARE (Football Against Racism in Europe) organization spotted
banners with Celtic Crosses, often used by neo-Nazis, in the
Russian stands during a match against South Korea (1-1) on June
18.
The violation may lead to serious sanction against the Russian
national team, which may include a point deduction.
Russia was under threat of similar punishment after its fans
threw fireworks onto the pitch and displayed offensive banners
during Euro 2012.
However, the country’s football authorities managed to win the
appeal against the ruling and a point deduction was avoided.
In recent decades, showing support for your team in Russia often
exceeds wearing club colors and chanting in the stands, turning
into brawls with police and fans of the opposing team.
“In 1998, when Spartak was playing CSKA in Moscow, we had a
huge fight. Red Blue Warriors came up against us, there was more
than 800 people involved in a brawl,” Vasily, former
hooligan and co-founder of the Gladiators firm, told RT.
But the retired hooligan now he says that fan culture has changed
massively in Russia in the last decade.
“The stereotype of an English football hooligan or Italian
ultras no longer applied to us. We went our own way. Now there
are no loud criminal cases against hooligans – compared to
90s,” he stressed.
Back in the Soviet times, football was considered one of the
nation’s prides, with the country winning the first ever European
championship in 1960.
Russia produced one of the world’s top goalkeepers, Lev Yashin,
as well as plethora of managers, like Valery Lobanovsky, who
revolutionized the game.
With the collapse of the USSR, football suffered a major blow,
which coincided with the rise of hooliganism in the country.
It’s still unclear what caused this surge in violence at the
time, but in more recent years, Russian hooligans have been
making headlines – from violent pitch invasions, mass street rallies to
racist incidents and swastikas in the stands.
Neo-Nazi views and xenophobia have been among the most debated
issues. When a fan was killed in a fight with migrants in Moscow
back in 2010, thousands of ultras made themselves heard right by the walls of
the Kremlin.
“Politically motivated people have always been close to fan
groups. Not only have they propagandized the cult of violence,
but they explained why this violence was needed. That’s why Nazi
views are popular there, because force and violence are the basis
of Nazism and fascism,” Georgy Fedorov, from Aspect social
research center explained.
However, another former hooligan and founder of Fratria, Russia’s
largest fan movement – Ivan Katanaev – believes the issue is
often blown up in the press – and problems are usually solved
even before they appear.
“Hooligans spearheaded events at the Maidan in Ukraine. Some
of them are in the National Guard now. So, potentially this is a
very dangerous part of society. But our authorities are pursuing
a very clever strategy with hooligan communities, so there’s no
danger from them in Russia. These fights happen every weekend,
but no one knows of them – they happen out of town, in forests
and strictly upon agreement,” Katanaev told RT.
The 2013 movie ‘Okolofutbola’ (‘Football hooligans’) tells the
story of a firm of hooligans – consisting partially of white
collar workers – where death and destruction rubs shoulders with
love and friendship.
One of its characters keeps asking the question: “Why do you
fight?” which is answered by another question: “What do
you want us to do? Play football?”
The slogan of the movie, which saw nearly half a million flocking
to Russian cinemas, was “We can’t be changed”.
But, according to Vasily, real life has proven they can. It's
just the matter of whether the rest of the world will be happy
with this evolution of Russian fan culture when the country hosts
the next FIFA World Cup in 2018.