Every Football Club to Have Police Supervisor
Every football club in Russia will soon have a personal supervisor from Interior Ministry, at least the ministry plans to do it in the near future in an effort to prevent mass scuffles of fans.
Russia’s Interior Ministry plans to assign a policeman to every football club in Russia, Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin announced yesterday. “Under the order of minister, such patronage will be first introduced in the cities of 100,000 population. Then, we will go further, I suppose,” the deputy minister explained. “For this role, we will choose senior officers, half-colonels and colonels willing to do this work. Indeed, to do the job adequately, one should like football and not spare the time.”
The prime concern of officers will be preventing scuffles of fans, which have become more frequent recently. Roughly 1,400 fans have been brought to administrative account since earlier this year, according to Interior Ministry.
“Football hooligans try to provoke a scuffle even before the match,” Chekalin pointed out. “The basic trend is the so-called English disease – an intention to show one’s worth in fisticuffs and in street riots. In addition, most of offences moved from the territory of sports arena,” the official said.
“Officers will be meeting with management of football clubs and members of fans’ associations, enhancing security at matches,” Chekalin’s briefer Elena Alekseeva specified.
The response of football clubs to Chekalin’s idea was far from even. In the CSKA Sports Fans Club, they said they will build their own stadium and have their own police there. However, the general forecast is that police will supervise official clubs, with which they are cooperating already, but will hardly succeed with informal ones.
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All the Article in Russian as of May 29, 2007
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