BY TIM PARSONS
Vladimir Putin has ridiculed English fans, by joking that just 200 fans could beat up ”several thousands of English fans.
The Russian president was referring to the sporadic violence at Last Saturday’s match between England at Russia that finish a draw at the end of full time. Russia was given a suspended disqualification from the tournament, meaning that the Russian football squad will be disqualified and sent home in the event of further scenes of violence at this years Euro 2016.
But at the economic forum at St.Petersburg, Russian President, Vladimir Putin said: ”The fighting between Russian fans with the English, that is a disgrace”. I don’t know how 200 fans could beat several thousand fans of the British”. The room erupted in laughter, an implied acknowledgement of the ridicule. He added ”At the moment , we see there are many problems in sports.
The European football cup is taking place at the moment, but I believe people are paying attention to the fights. And I regret saying this. I regret seeing that people are paying such importance to fight fans”. His comments are shocking to say the least. How a president can think fights occurring in mass numbers are not important is ridiculous. No surprise he felt he could afford to ridicule English fans, considering how lightly he takes the violence.
Stating that responsibility for such acts be as personalized as possible, he seemed to indirectly suggest that the suspended disqualification given to the Russian squad by the Uefa football governing amounted to unequal treatment. ”And the way we treat the violators has to be the same. They have to be equally treated”, he said. Putin failed to realize that equal punishment cannot be meted out to offenders for unequal offenses. Equal treatment means different sets of punishment for different levels of misconduct.
Russian hooligans were the chief perpetrators of the Mayhem that marred the England v Russia game, and therefore were correctly disciplined by Uefa. And his mockery of British fans was inaccurate because 200 Russian fans did not beat up several thousands of English fans, as the numbers of fans involved in the violence were randomly distributed, with no computerized way of precisely determining the number of fans per country, involved in the melee. Putin did call on Russian fans to behave appropriately when they face Wales on Monday, adding ”I hope there are sober minded people among them who love sport and understand that any violation is not supporting their favourite team, but damaging to the team and to the sport”.
England beat Wales 2-1 in their game, a match from which comparisons can be drawn when Russia meet Wales on Monday. Russia equalized against England in the dying minutes of the game, almost the same way England had beaten Wales, after dominating much of the game. If Russians demonstrate any signs of violence between now and the game on Monday, the team will be going straight home.
On Saturday, it was revealed that the far right leader of the Russian football supporter’s association is to be deported from France, alongside 19 fellow fans. Alexander Shyprygin, was among 43 Russians to be detained on Tuesday on their way to Lille to watch Russia’s second fixture against Slovakia. 12 of the Russians detained over the disgraceful fracas, were released without charge, whilst three other detained Russians were jailed for up to two years over the violence in Marseille.
