Putin’s Repressive Tactics Alienating and Uniting Even Football Fans Against Him

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 9 – No one is surprised when Vladimir Putin and his siloviki use force against his political opponents, Ivan Davydov says; but now his regime feels free to use force against anyone and that is backfiring on the Kremlin leader as even football fans, long among his backers, have been alienated and are even uniting in protest.

            In today’s New Times, the Moscow publicist says that the siloviki’s use of force against fans who were denouncing their team’s opponent and its star, an action that resulted in dozens of arrests at the stadium and then at bars and cafes nearby, shocked the fans, especially when they learned that they faced hefty fines or worse (newtimes.ru/articles/detail/188441?fcc).

            Up until this past week, “if fans were too aggressive in their behavior at a stadium, their club was fined. If things got really out of hand, the police took action,” Davydov says. Everyone accepted this as “the norm.”  But now it is clear that this is “the old norm” and that a new and uglier one has been imposed by the authorities in its place.

            According to Davydov, “the police in Russia suddenly decided to change the rules of the game. Since November, Spartak fans have taken to denouncing in harsh language” the star of a visiting team. That occurred on December 1. Something unusual happened: “the police of St. Petersburg decided to act on behalf” of the player being attacked. 

            They began arresting people in the streets and bars near the stadium, the publicist continues.  And they said they were doing this to avoid “disorders.” What this means is that any chant the authorities don’t think is appropriate is now “extremism.” In this way, “football fans, just like political activists, are being persecuted for their words.”

            “There is in fact no difference at all.”

            But then something surprising happened: a group of Spartak fans “turned to the fans of other teams with an appeal: to leave matches a half an hour after they begin as a protest against police arbitrariness.  And the fans responded,” even though in ordinary times they “hate one another.”

            As a result, in the next round, “leading Russian teams played in front of empty seats,” and then the police decided to prevent fans by force from leaving until after the game. But this should not distract from what is happening: “the state is breeding enemies even in those places where people before didn’t think much about politics.”

            “The police both in the stadiums and in peaceful meetings in Moscow alike consider that they have the right to beat people. And alike in both cases they infuriate both those who are interested in politics and those who are interested in football,” Davydov says.

            This is hardly “an accident,” he continues. “This is part of the new normal, the model of order which the state is trying to impose on us … For it, order is a ban on any critical comment; and it doesn’t matter whether it is addressed to Putin or to [a member of an opposing football team].”

            “To ask why is already to be at risk of being charged with extremism,” Davydov says. The state now views the use of force even when there is no justification “the norm, the basis of its existence, its holy right.  An attack on this right is thus a crime.”

            But by acting in this way, the publicist says, the regime is producing ever more enemies to itself “even among those which were loyal to it and those who hadn’t thought about politics at all.”