Russian scum going at it again

Chaos in Bilbao tonight.

https://sports.yahoo.com/russian-spanish-hooligans-hurl-fireworks-fists-scary-pregame-battles-video-213623169.html

Anyone would think they had a world cup coming up!!!!!

There's absolutely no chance these goons will be allowed anywhere near the FIFA roadshow in June.

Hugh Watt wrote:

There's absolutely no chance these goons will be allowed anywhere near the FIFA roadshow in June.

Nevertheless I wouldn’t go over there unless I was guaranteed VIP treatment, including an armed guard from hotel to stadium and back.

Maybe FIFA should just blanket ban Russians from away games.

Hugh Watt wrote:

There's absolutely no chance these goons will be allowed anywhere near the FIFA roadshow in June.

Oh you can rest assured there’ll be no official state coverage of them all playing up. But the problem with trying to cover anything up in this day and age is that social media is everywhere, and instant. One click and a video is twattered across the world.

I can’t see many countries actively looking to taken on the Russian firms. I think it’s far more likely that in their frustration they’ll start battling amongst themselves.

I was in France last year for a couple games straight after the Marseille riots. The scale and level of violence the Russians showed took everyone by surprise. At least people will be wary of it if they’re still keen to go to this World Cup.

Paramilitaries, if not regulars on a training mission.

There has often been a political side to football violence. In this country we had the National Front actively recruiting at football grounds and infiltrating to set up racist chants and much more besides.

On a more sytemic level in the Yugoslav breakdown an Ultra leader named Arkan was used by the Serbs to send his heavies in to break a few Croatian or Bosnian heads to help get the odd message across and eventually their Cup Final degenerated into what amounted to being a pre-cursor to the whole horrible ethnic cleansing thing as the Croat ultras from Dinamo Zagreb were set upon in Belgrade by the Red Star ultras, under Arkan's leadership, and a full-on riot ensued.

Not so long ago the police stood aside in Egypt and 74 Al Ahli fans were killed in a stadium in the chaos the police facillitated.

State collusion with hoolies certainly does occur. We have seen it often enough. That's not to say it will happen in Russia but who knows?

tigertony wrote:

Maybe FIFA should just blanket ban Russians from away games.

And have them represented under the banner world cup athletes fro russia like in the winter Olympics?

What saddens me most about this is...

Back in '90 I was 25 years old, I was young free and single and beholden to nobody for any reason. I had a decent enough job and was earning decent enough money. I could easily have saved up some wedge and gone to Italia 90.

However the steady, decent money I was on was too good, too safe, too reliable even though I had no real need for it.

I should have gone. What was there to lose other than what was essentially just a crappy job? I could have left it, gone, come back and got another crappy job somewhere else.

Why did I not go? The whole hoolie thing. After the Euros in Germany in '88... It just looked like too much bother.

But I was wrong. I should have been there in Turin.

That's the one thing I would change in my life if i could.

i went to the 3 group games in Sardinia. It was complete chaos from the minute we landed in Naples. Best 2 weeks of my life though.