Splintered by obscenities

The new head of the Russian Football Union decided to eradicate foul language in the stands. Well, well, say the fans

After the match of the second round of the Russian Football Championship "Zenith" - "Spartak", the famous actor and avid St. Petersburg fan Mikhail Boyarsky was very worried: like a cultural capital, but not very culture - there is a solid mat in the stands. In his hearts, he even promised that if he heard something like that again, he would never enter the stadium again. Boyarsky's fan was so upset by obscene chants addressed to Spartak, which the Zenit sector poured from the first to the last minute, as well as obscene banners. “This is not support for your favorite team - it offends them,” the singer and actor complained to Newsweek. - After all, 99% of them have no hearing, even banners cannot be written by literate people. A shame".

The fans could not pay attention to Mikhail Boyarsky's dissatisfaction, but besides him, the newly elected new president of the Russian Football Union (RFU), Sergey Fursenko, was present at the match. He had just returned to big football and said that he would make it a big public holiday, as it was in Soviet times: so that the stands were packed and that it was cozy family entertainment.

And here is the start of the season. Fursenko reacted appropriately to the game between Zenit and Spartak: you can’t behave like that in the stands, you have to fight it. And he promised to eradicate foul language in the near future. Fans are not very scared of him. A week earlier, one of the Spartak fans chuckles, asking, however, not to mention his name, Fursenko threatened to win the World Cup in 2018, and this is his statement about the imminent end of the football mat from the same series.

Indeed, it is not very clear how the RFU will be able to defeat foul language. Clubs are formally responsible for their fans: after each match, the Control and Disciplinary Committee of the RFU (FTC) imposes fines on the teams. But we are talking about sums that are ridiculous by football standards. For example, chanting obscene language against a judge costs 20,000 rubles, and it doesn't matter if it was said once or ten times.

True, there is a clause in the regulations about “violation of public order by fans”. For this, they are fined more seriously. They are punished not for some separate cries, but for organized chants and songs. For example, after the match between Dynamo and Zenit, the Moscow club was sentenced to a fine of 400,000 rubles, and the St. Petersburg club to 500,000, which is the maximum possible amount. Fans of Dynamo cursed singer Tatyana Bulanova, the wife of the head of Zenit Vladislav Radimov, and Zenit fans spoke about Lev Yashin in the same vein.

Last year, several Moscow Spartak fans showed visitors from Nalchik a "sheep*would" banner in retaliation for the fact that in 2008, local fans in Kabardino-Balkaria shot and almost killed one of the capital's fans. Then the local police did not finish the case. The club was fined 500,000 rubles. The general director of Spartak, Valery Karpin, asked the fans not to do this again, and such banners no longer appeared.

But this is a rarity, an exceptional case. Usually the fine does not exceed 100,000 rubles. Zenit paid 150,000 rubles after the match with Spartak, which angered Fursenko and Boyarsky so much. And even before the start of the season, the clubs enter into the budget an article “to work with the fans”.

If fans are asked not to swear in a good way, then they will listen, Igor Kholod, coordinator for working with fans of the Rostov club, is sure. He is surprised that the RFU is considering exclusively punitive measures: in the near future, the instigators of chants will probably be identified with the help of video cameras, and then punished with administrative fines. Kholod believes that this is a hopeless path: “This is a rough environment, it takes with hostility everyone who tries to put pressure on it.”

Last year, the leadership of Krylia Sovetov reached out to its fans. Before the next game, a reminder appeared on the site that “the Russian language is much richer than it seems to some unfortunate fans”, and a call to hold a “Match without a mat”. At the next game against Khimki, the fans were quieter. This year, Makhachkala fans excelled: two weeks ago, during a match with CSKA, they shouted curses at Moscow, and then threw stones and eggs at the bus. All this cost Anji 315,000 rubles, and the club urged the fans to be more restrained: “Respect the Dagestan tradition of hospitality.”

Now in Makhachkala they promise that the next match will be quieter - the fans should be affected by threats of "sanctions from law enforcement agencies." “Yes, what are the sanctions? We have double standards: Spartak can't do one thing, Zenit can't have a second one, CSKA can't have a third, and teams from the Caucasus can do everything,” a representative of the Spartak movement tells Newsweek. He recalls that last year the stadiums in the south sang in unison "Moscow pid ... sy" and always got off with only fines - the match was never played in empty stands.

Moscow also started talking about additional sanctions. For the first time, a list of 19 fans appeared on the RFU website, who were prosecuted for various violations last year after football. These names should become a clear example for the rest. The president of the Premier League, Sergei Pryadkin, admitted that the top officials had already demanded tougher penalties for obscene banners and chants, and that there could be more criminal cases.

Pavel Krasheninnikov, head of the Duma Committee on Civil Legislation, believes that no toughening is really needed: "Let's at least begin to apply the measures that we have now." Obscene language at stadiums falls under the article on petty hooliganism, and a fine should be issued for it. The problem is that no one wants to get in touch with fans over such trifles. “It's troublesome. But it needs to be done,” Krasheninnikov believes.

The football commentator of Channel One, Viktor Gusev, is also calling for a fight against obscenity: before, he says, swearing was at least good-natured, but now it has become some kind of aggressive. “There was a “judge for soap”, and now I don’t even want to repeat it,” the commentator worries. Fans justify themselves: the opponent needs to be provoked, and it is much easier to do this with the help of a sharp word. Moreover, they insist, chants always carry some meaning and you can’t throw out a swear word from them, like a word from a song. These arguments do not convince Mikhail Boyarsky: “When they shout “Bystrov is shit” at the presentation of medals, I’m not very used to this.”