By Richard van Poortvliet
March 21 – The infamous Zenit St Petersburg fan group, Landscrona have made an official statement, saying the flag that was burnt during Zenit’s Champions League clash at Borussia Dortmund, was not the German national flag, but a banner from one of Borussia’s supporters groups.
UEFA have already announced that they will open disciplinary proceedings into the incident. Landscrona issued a strangely worded statement giving their view of the events that unfolded.
“A number of press outlets in Russia published information about the Zenit fans burning the national flag of Germany during the game in Dortmund,” the fan group mentioned on the Russian social network VKontakte. “A banner belonging to one of Borussia’s fan groups was burnt, which was the only logical end to the encounter over two matches for the fans. Zenit had the upper hand and were stronger, which was demonstrated by fact that they managed to get their hands on the banner.”
Landscrona are of course no strangers to controversy, with this muddled message the latest of a number of strongly worded statements. In December 2012, the group issued a manifesto stating their desire that no gays or non-white players should ever play for Zenit. They added, “dark-skinned players are all but forced down Zenit’s throat now, which only brings out a negative reaction,” and said gay players were “unworthy of our great city.”
Yury Fedotov, Zenit’s assistant General Director for Safety also weighed into the argument, stating, “During the match in Dortmund, the Zenit fans tried on three of four occasions at the least to light flares. Other fans of our club put these flares out. Our supporters understood that if they were allowed to burn, this could have a negative affect on the team in the future.”
“There was no flag present, it was a red and yellow banner, which belonged to the Borussia fans. According to our information, the Zenit fans bought this banner with them from St. Petersburg and there was no political ideology behind this. 2700 fans travelled from St. Petersburg to support their team and on the whole, they were well behaved. Three or four attempts to light flares is not that much in my opinion, while they were put out almost immediately,” Fedotov concluded.
UEFA will hold their next disciplinary committee on the May 14 and if Zenit are found guilty, they are likely to suffer a heavy punishment. Part of the Petrovsky Stadium was closed for the club’s last home game in Europe, the first leg of their Champions League tie against Borussia Dortmund. This was punishment for Zenit fans throwing flares at Austria Vienna fans in December.
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