By Vestnik Kavkaza
In January, the law on fans comes into force. Officially it is called On Launching Amendments to Certain Laws of Russia for Providing Security and Public Peace at Sporting Events. It has been adopted, but will begin its operation after the signing of two governmental acts – Providing Security at Official Sporting Events which was developed by the Interior Ministry and Rules for Spectators of Official Sporting Events which was developed by the Ministry of Sport. Will the law help in the struggle against nationalism and disruptive behavior without a decrease of the number of fans at stadiums?
Yeugeny Lovchev, a world-class athlete, thinks that in the past fans were more civilized: “Such unions began to appear in the mid 1970s. Spartak’s fans united in 1976 and began to travel across the country. When we saw in Minsk in the First League and in Chisinau before it a group of fans, it was very pleasant for us. But they were people who grew up from the previous fan generation. When we lost in one of key matches in the first round of the First League and “fell” to the fifth place, the guys marched from a hotel to the railway station in an orderly manner. They came to us, but didn’t shout or blame us, they tried to comfort us and said: “We believe in you, guys! We stand by you!” There was no extremism. But later everything changed.”
Anzor Kavazashvili, the head of the all-Russian Football Federation, sees a problem in the fact that “responsible people who have taken a heavy burden of heading the huge army of fans in Russia” are not in charge of them. “They have to be responsible for behavior of the groups which misbehave on the streets and stadiums. The law is needed of course. There are administrative penalties, but in UK, in Germany when first such cases took place at stadiums, the rowdies were arrested at once; their pictures were in data bases all over the country; they were not allowed anywhere for 2-3 years – to a foreign country where their favorite team played, to stadiums. It means that if they adopt a law, they fulfill it 100%. There are many laws in Russia, but they don’t work.”
However, Alexei Tolkachev, the head of the department for security and fans affair of the Russian Football Union, says that the new “law requires not only liabilities for fans, but also rights. The law defines who spectators are and who stewards are. Football clubs, sporting events’ organizations involve stewards for providing public peace. These are specially trained people, according to the Ministry of Sport standards. Responsibility for all typical violations of modern football will be defined there – pyrotechnics, insulting mottos, obscene language, running on the pitch, blanketing smoke, and so on. The responsibility requires a fine of 10-15 thousand rubles, an administrative arrest for 15 days, and an administrative ban on attending football events.”
