Roadblocks to the Russian World Cup: Racism

In the first of a four part series, Joshua King explores the dark side of football in the East.

Football in Russia is great. It’s competitive and intriguing in equal measure. There are world class players playing throughout the Premier league and although the domestic season is over, three Russian clubs are still in the hunt for European silverware. The game is raw, gritty and now slick with oil money – the fans in Russia have never had it so good. But is the world’s largest country ready for the game’s greatest spectacle? Not by a long shot.

Much has been made of Fifa’s decision to award Russia the 2018 World Cup, and much more will be said and written in the days and weeks to come. But after the talking heads have had their say, and after the tabloids have exhausted this seam of ‘corruption’ stories, Fifa is going to have to face up to the very real challenges of hosting a World Cup in country that, despite appearance, faces very real socio-economic problems. Let’s take a look at the four biggest obstacles on the road to 2018:

1) Racism

Intolerance is rife throughout Russia. It is an unquestionably insular society where conservative values regularly clash with the multi-culturalism of the beautiful game. In recent months Russian World Cup bid chairman Alexei Sorokin was forced to defend the Russian Football Union’s (RFU) track record on dealing with racism.

From Russia with hate

Following the high profile transfer of Nigerian Peter Odemwingie from Locomotiv Moscow to West Bromwich Albion, Locomotiv fans draped a large ‘Thank you West Brom’ banner painted with a banana from their stands. The club escaped punishment. Sorokin has insisted that the banana banner was not racist but was aimed at incompetent players, but the actions of those Locomotiv fans were hardly out of the ordinary. 

In 2007 Spartak Moscow were fined when some of its fans held up a banner "Monkey go home" at a game after Brazilian born Welliton joined the club. A year later Uefa fined Zenit St Petersburg £38,000 after Marseille players were targeted by some of the Russian club's fans. 

And prejudice and racist action isn’t only directed at the players. In May 2006, Amnesty International reported that racially motivated killings in Russia were "out of control” and since then, despite the best efforts of Vladimir Putin and the Federal Security Service, there have been nearly 2,500 racially motivated acts of violence or murders. It has also been suggested that there are as many as 85,000 hard-line neo-Nazis in the country, “half of the world’s total”.

All this is in a country that will be accommodating players and fans from around the globe in less than a decade. Whilst it is feasible for the RFU to argue that they will have the relevant infrastructure in place in that time, it is a bold suggestion that the government will be able to alter the generations old mindset prevalent throughout the world’s ninth most populous nation.  According to Sorokin, the Russian Football Union and Fifa did not discuss the subject of racism during the world governing body's visit. Perhaps Fifa should have been asking whether the country is ready to welcome teams of all colours, creeds and nationalities onto its frosty shores.

Keep an eye open for part two of the 'Roadblocks to the Russian World Cup' series.