At the FIFA headquarters after the events at the Lokomotiv stadium yet unofficially was considered the question of putting on the agenda of the FIFA the reconsideration of the venue of the FIFA World Cup in 2018, according to Alexander Sokolov, a member of the Council on International Relations under the Russian president. “I thus in no way want to say that all fan groups are nationalistic - not at all. But a number of fan groups are really full of people who are prone to ultra nationalistic views. Moreover, this problem is not specifically Russian”, Sokolov says.” If we look at our neighbors, say, Bulgarians, who are close to us in their mentality, there have been developments in the past year, when a serious conflict broke out in the south of Bulgaria between Bulgarians and Roma. These were the fans of the Plovdiv football club "Plovdiv" that appeared to be the driving force in the force resolution of the conflict.
In Germany, the manifestations of nationalism are not only a serious criminal offense, but they are also seriously condemned by the public. And there is rather not much of its manifestation in the UK. In the UK, it is connected with the measures that have been adopted after the excommunication of the English football from the world football, which happened a few decades ago, after the tragedy at an international match between Liverpool and Juventus, in a great number of Italian fans were killed and when all the British clubs in the UK were excommunicated from all European competitions and England was also shot to participate in any international competitions. During the period of its excommunication British had developed a unique system of measures for cooperation between society and the state on the restoration of order in this field. British soccer fans have always been considered the most "cool" in Europe, and after that their "coolness" did not decrease, but there no serious illegal actions in regard to representatives of other countries, other ethnic or religious group can be observed.
What is happening at the moment in our country? As a problem the society began to consider the activity of football fans starting from December 2010, when events on the Manezhnaya Square took place. However, I think that all reasonable people understand the difference between the planned, organized by formal fans structures action in the memory of Yegor Sviridov in support of a fair and impartial investigation and actions on the Manezhnaya Square, which in no way were regulated by football clubs , associations of fans and so on. At the same time, the attributes that were worn by young people who were on the Manezhnaya Square and some chants indicate that they belonged to fan groups. It was then that it was noticed for the first time. Prime Minister, then Vladimir Putin after that met with leaders of football groups, to be more correct football associations, some issues were highlighted, some conclusions were made. It seemed that cooperation between government agencies, which are responsible for youth and sports, and football associations started to develop, and the situation seemed to have been stabilized. But recent events, if we remember a story which started in Makhachkala, and if we are, so to speak, stop worrying and leave the situation as it is now, the next time it can break in a completely unexpected place and in a very unattractive way. Especially now, as I say, that events in the Rostov region and other events that are happening in the country, I have often talked about this, show that tensions in the country I would not say are present in the interethnic relations, I would say in the sphere of social relations between citizens, often disguised as ethnic ones. These are relationships of intolerance, intolerance in regard to opinions of others, intolerance to an incomprehensible behavior of one person to another. Intolerance to other cultures, intolerance to any other political views are almost present in the press, in the actions that take place.
Look at the events that took place in Moscow on Saturday. Even a political protest was largely characterized by nationalistic sentiments. There was a rather long column of people who call themselves Russian nationalists who came out with their program, have their slogans, which clearly enough indicate that their position is not a tolerant position in regard to other ethnic groups who live on the territory of the Russian Federation and are indigenous to Russia or live here for a long time. In connection with this, one should approach this problem not from a standard viewpoint, with an attempt for cultural education, awareness, agitation. The problem is rather specific and requires to be solved with the use of specific methods. Here, I think, there should be developed in cooperation with fan associations, together with experts on international relations and sports professionals a program, which might be probably even called... Because it is linked with objectives and any program must have some economic leverage of funding. It is related to the FIFA World Cup in 2018, because problems of this kind, as world experience shows, cannot be solved in a month, a year or even three years. Only in time for 2018, if we start it in the next few months, one could get some good results.
