Over 3000 football fans blocked from entering Russia for 2018 World Cup

Russian security services blocked over 3,000 foreign football fans with a previous record of misconduct at sports facilities from entering Russia during the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev said.

"As a result of cooperation with our foreign colleagues and information exchange, over 3,000 foreign citizens, who had a record of misconduct at sports facilities in the past, were declined to enter Russia," the minister noted.

"The fact that they were declined to enter the country played an important role in the provision of safety at the world championship," TASS cited Kolokoltsev as saying,

He added that over 100,000 members of the Interior Ministry were involved in the provision of security during the global football championship.

"Positive characteristics should be attributed to the Center of International Police Interaction as well as to detachments of tourist police," Kolokoltsev added.

This summer Russia hosted its first-ever FIFA World Cup, which kicked off in Moscow with an opening show at Luzhniki Stadium on 14 and ended with a spectacular final match, played also at the Luzhniki Stadium, where France confidently defeated Croatia 4-2 to win the much-coveted World Cup Trophy. The country selected 11 host cities to be the venues for the matches of the 2018 World Cup and they were Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara.