Fyodor Smolov, the Russia forward, has accused England and Wales fans of provoking the violence on the streets in Lille last week and also said that any supporters “with the intention of scrapping, should fight elsewhere”, rather than in the stadium.
In bizarre comments made on the eve of their final group game against Wales, which has been upgraded to high risk in the wake of the trouble in Marseille and Lille, Smolov absolved Russian hooligans of any blame on the basis of videos he has seen on the internet.
The Krasnodar player, 26, was asked about the issue in the context of the Croatia players who have openly criticised their supporters involved in ugly scenes inside the stadium towards the end of the Czech Republic match on Friday, and whether he would be prepared to ask Russian fans to behave themselves and not cause any more trouble.
“Clearly I read those [Croatia] interviews,” Smolov said. “From my side of things I’m not really going to make any statement. I’d like the supporters to go on backing us. As for everything that goes on around us, there’s a number of videos that have been uploaded on the web and clearly the English really did provoke them, and indeed the Welsh fans – clearly these events mustn’t go on in football stands. But if people really want to go out with the intention of scrapping, they should fight elsewhere, they shouldn’t do so in the stadium – we want to have support in the stadium.”
Uefa has ruled that Russia will be disqualified from Euro 2016 if there is a repeat of the crowd trouble seen at the Stade Vélodrome that overshadowed their opening match with England in Marseille. More than 600 extra police officers have been drafted into Toulouse to strengthen security amid concerns that there could be more violent scenes.
Leonid Slutsky, the Russia coach, was asked whether he had a message for Russia fans. “Any disorder, or anything like that, violence, that’s all in the past, because a number of measures were taken after the match in Marseille to try and organise things in a much more civilised fashion. Of course if that could help, then I would like our supporters to continue go on supporting us, really get behind us, albeit within the framework of the existing legislation, not only football but within a civilised society.”
Russia, who are bottom of Group B, need to beat Wales to have any chance of qualifying for the knockout stage. Slutsky implied that Russia are favourites in the game and said he had no plans to man-mark Gareth Bale. “Bale does like to roam into different areas of the pitch, so we’ll try to neutralise his threat zonally,” he said.
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