LONDON (AP) – Russian football is plagued by a racist and far-right extremist fan culture that threatens the safety of visitors to the 2018 World Cup, a report provided to The Associated Press reveals.
Researchers from the Moscow-based SOVA Center and the Fare network, which helps to prosecute racism cases for European football’s governing body UEFA, highlighted more than 200 cases of discriminatory behavior linked to Russian football over two seasons.
“It shows a really quite gruesome picture of a domestic league which is full of aspects of racism, xenophobia: The far-right play a significant role in the fan culture,” Fare executive director Piara Powar said in an interview with the Associated Press.
The report collated dozens of cases where fans carried out campaigns and sold far-right merchandise to collect money for imprisoned neo-Nazis. It provides a detailed breakdown of discriminatory incidents around matches, pinpointing 72 displays of neo-Nazi symbols, 22 acts against people from the Caucasus region, which includes Dagestan and Chechnya, and five occasions of abuse against black people. The report, which covers 2012-14, does not include an apparent rise in the targeting of black players being documented this season, Fare said.
In the week when the football world was focused on the rescheduling of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, this report – entitled “Time for Action”- shifts the focus back onto the next hosts of football’s biggest event, due to be held in three years’ time in 11 Russian cities.