Fan-fan is a blockhead – Newspaper Kommersant No. 217 (7179) of 11/30/2021

by time news

The incidents that took place during and after the Sunday match of the 16th round of the Russian football championship, in which CSKA lost to Zenit at the VEB Arena – 0: 2, may have consequences that go beyond the usual story about “romantic” football hooligans and “unkind” policemen. The incident makes it almost inevitable that the Fan ID law will be passed as soon as possible, against which the fans of both teams loudly protested, and then reinforced the chants of the fire show. The bill has already passed the first reading. The second, the main one, should take place before the end of the year.

The events that took place on Sunday during and after the match of the 16th round of the Russian championship, in which CSKA lost at home to Zenit with a score of 0: 2, received wide media coverage. Let us remind you that the fans of both teams first started a roll call, shouting “We don’t need a Fan ID” (in itself, this is not punishable in any way). Then, in the CSKA fan sector, fans lit flares, which is already a direct violation of the rules of conduct in the stands. Perhaps the story could have been kept within the framework of a limited incident, if not for the reaction to what happened to the police, which seemed disproportionate to many: the fans were detained in the stands for several hours, after which many of them were taken to police stations. By the way, in total, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, only 51 protocols were drawn up. In almost half of the cases – for “violation of the rules of behavior of spectators during official sports competitions” (14 of them – for the use of pyrotechnic products). The rest were charged with drinking alcohol in public places.

The RPL press service hot on the heels criticized the actions of the police, noting that “the measures taken by the police obviously violated the comfort and endangered the health of people.” In fact, the situation may not be so straightforward. After all, as the head of the RPL Ashot Khachaturyants stated on Monday on Match TV, this story was not without the actions of some hackers who turned off the cameras that were “looking” at the fan sector. Hence, presumably, the inability of the police to immediately identify those who ignited the flares.

“So far we have not been able to get a report from the police on yesterday’s actions. It is only clear that it was a planned hacker attack that turned off the cameras, ”said Mr. Khachaturyants.

These words are quite consistent with the statement made earlier by the Ministry of Internal Affairs that the VEB Arena stadium “did not meet the requirements of the safety rules during official sports competitions. In particular, there was no video filming of the sectors where the most active fans were ”.

However, not everyone is inclined to criticize the work of the police. “CSKA fans tried to hide their comrades-in-arms, who burned flares, so the police detained everyone,” State Duma deputy, Olympic speed skating champion Svetlana Zhurova told RB Sport. Another State Duma deputy Nikolai Valuev reminded Sport 24 that “pyrotechnics are prohibited at mass cultural and sporting events.” “The detentions are connected with this. Why were everyone detained? I think it will take time to identify the instigators. If everyone is detained in batches, this suggests that there is not a good enough system for identifying faces. At the moment, tickets for the match are taken on a regular passport, but now it is going to accept Fan ID. This incident is direct evidence of why this should be done. ” Honorary President of the Russian Football Union Vyacheslav Koloskov believes that “if there were no firecrackers, pyrotechnics and other disgraceful things, no one would have known that the police were present at the stadium.” “Problems should be looked for not in the police, but in the persons who carried the pyrotechnics into the stadium,” Mr. Koloskov told RIA Novosti. “There have been no such outrages at our stadiums for a long time. They detained everyone to weed out the guilty from the innocent. What happened is a strong blow to the image of Russian football. We are complaining about the low attendance. But who will go to the stadium when drunken people swear and insult everyone in a row, as well as make an outrage in the stands. Hopefully, with the introduction of the Fan ID system, everything will be normalized. “

As you can see, opponents of Fan ID implementation run the risk of achieving the opposite result to their aspirations.

Recall that the draft law on the introduction of a fan passport was adopted by the State Duma in the first reading in mid-November. At the same time, Dmitry Svishchev, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Physical Culture and Sports, said that the Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation should still make its amendments to the second, main reading, and the document could be sent to the President of Russia for signing before the end of the year. In light of the recent delays in the adoption of the Fan ID law, it seems unlikely. It cannot be ruled out that the wording of the bill will be toughened by the second reading.

It should be noted that many opponents of the Fan ID implementation note that its introduction is an excessive measure, since football clubs already have a regime that provides for access to fan sectors only for holders of the corresponding registered season tickets. But as can be seen from the example of VEB Arena, this did not help. It should be noted that the comparison of privately administered and self-contained club systems with the state system, which has access to the entire completeness of data about a person, is not entirely correct. According to the text of the bill, the Single Operator of the Fan ID Information System has the right to refuse to issue a Fan ID or decide to suspend its operation not only after a fan has already violated the rules of conduct in the arena, but also if “it is necessary in in order to ensure the defense capability or security of the state ”, or if there is information about the facts of violation by spectators of the rules of conduct during mass events outside the Russian Federation, or even if there is information simply about the intention to commit a violation at a sporting event.

Alexander Petrov

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