Right-footed football

Football fans become heroes again crime chronicle. April 18, 2016 in the Moscow metro car group young people arranged a "white car" - a raid on the car with targeted beatings people of "non-Slavic" appearance. A crowd of aggressive young people beat two immigrants from Central Asia (according to various sources, from Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan). At least one of the attackers was a fan of the Moscow football club "Dynamo".

It is far from the first time that the aggressiveness of the far right fans spill out of the stadium into the streets. Of course, from radical tuned fans are much more likely to get other fans, players from teams with North Caucasus and black players. And racist propaganda at the stadiums, despite all the efforts of the authorities, does not stop. For example, on May 1, 2016, during the match between Krasnodar and Anji, Krasnodar fans put up a banner “No Banana No Party Onzhi”.

However, attacks often occur without any sports background at all.

Here are just a few examples.

• December 11, 2015 in Moscow at the station "Kitai-Gorod" a group of young people, among whom were football fans, beat 20-year-old native of Kyrgyzstan Batyr K. The police detained the instigator of the fight is a Spartak fan.
• November 21, 2015 in Moscow football fans unknown team attacked a girl in a hijab, and a young man who tried intercede for the victim, stabbed.
• In mid-March 2013, Spartak fans raided the carriage and beat up people of “non-Slavic appearance”. Video from the action fan Maksim Petrov posted on the site of far-right fans fans-edge.info.
• August 24, 2012 at the railway station Voskresensk (Moscow region) ultra-right fans attacked the natives Dagestan.
• September 23, 2012 in Nizhny Novgorod after match CSKA - Volga near the stadium, CSKA fans armed with bats attacked natives of the Caucasus.
• September 30, 2012 in the train "Moscow - Petushki" three fans of FC CSKA raided the cars, looking for people with a "non-Slavic" appearance. Passengers - "non-Slavs" were taken to the last carriage, where they were threatened stabbed and beaten with hands and feet.

In addition to direct attacks, more examples of racist propaganda in stadiums could be given (details can be learn from the joint reports of FARE and the SOVA Center here and here ).

Deep and strong links between the environment of aggressive football fans and associations of right-wing radicals have been traced for a long time. And this is not surprising: after all, both of them tend to strive for unity, aggression towards fans and players of the “opponent” (including dark-skinned).

Yes, and the personal intersection of these environments undoubtedly. Recall the sensational trial in the case of the famous neo-Nazi group BORN, where at least two convicts - Yuri Tikhomirov and Mikhail Volkov - associated himself with the movement of football fans, and BORN member Nikita Tikhonov, who was sentenced previously to life imprisonment for the murder of lawyer Stanislav Markelov, also repeatedly involved in fan fights.

Many football hooligans form tough cohesive combat units that gradually move away from the actual "fan" activities, essentially degenerating into neo-Nazi groups. IN in general, football hooligan groups are powerful, isolated and extremely cruel youth associations, some of whose members obviously supports racist ideas.

Of course, not all football fans are racists. Yes, and the degree of interest in football in each group of neo-Nazis, and each participant is different. However, numerous examples show that right-wing radicals influence football fans more others. Often, spontaneous pogroms carried out by neo-Nazis involve a fair amount of the number of football fans. And here it is impossible not to mention the events on Manezhnaya Square in Moscow December 11, 2010

Fortunately, Since then, it has not been possible to “consolidate the success of Manezhka” - all further repeated attempts by the far right to mobilize fan "firms" failed.

And generally speaking the number of aggressive football manifestations in the stadiums has been significantly cut in the last year. This gave football officials a reason to report, that racism among football fans is over. However, a recent case with an attack on migrants in a Moscow subway car demonstrates that this is far from being the case.