By Duncan Mackay
British Sports Internet Writer of the Year
December 11 – Sergei Fursenko, the President of the Russian Football Union (RFU), has claimed that nationalist organisations were behind violent clashes involving Spartak Moscow fans that today claimed the life of one fan and left another 29 injured.
Just nine days after Russia were awarded the 2018 World Cup, the frightening scenes saw 5,000 youngsters, mainly football fans and members of nationalist organisations, gathering on central Moscow’s Manezh Square to protest over the the earlier death of Spartak Moscow fan Yegor Sviridov.
Fursenko reacted by claiming that the RFU will launch a campaign promoting ethnic tolerance and health way of life among football fans.
Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said he will look into the causes of the clashes.
“As far as I know the movement of football fans has never been politicised and has never yielded to provocations,” he said.
Police used baton charges to break up the protesters.
There were chants of slogans such as “Russia for Russians”.
Sviridov, 28, was killed earlier this week during a mass brawl between football fans and internal migrants from the North Caucasus in north Moscow.
Police have already detained a man suspected of shooting him four times with a gun firing rubber bullets and two other migrants suspected of participating in the brawl.
“One should understand that everything what happened today and earlier has nothing to do with the Spartak football club,” Yegor Petrov, the head of Spartak Moscow’s fan club, told Russian news agency RIA Novsti.
“This is a problem of our society.
“This is not football.”
Earlier in the day, around 6,000 Spartak Moscow fans gathered at the bus stop where Sviridov was killed to lay flags at a makeshift memorial.
Sviridov was allegedly a member of the Spartak Ultras, a group linked to fan violence in the past.
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