France jails 3 Russian fans, to deport 20
Print Edition
AFTER a week of violence at the European Championship, France sentenced three Russian fans to prison and planned to deport 20 others next week for their role in the violence in Marseille that marred Russia’s opening match against England.
Sporadic violence has since moved to northern France, where Russia played Slovakia on Wednesday and England played Wales yesterday. But nothing as bad as the violence witnessed last week in the south.
Among the three Russians given prison terms is Alexei Erunov, the director for fan relations at leading Russian club Lokomotiv Moscow. He was sentenced to two years.
Part of the evidence against Erunov was footage filmed by another Russian fan and posted online. Erunov was seen shouting and gesturing on the video, which also showed acts of violence. He denied playing any role in the violence.
Dynamo Moscow fan Nikolai Morozov also received a 12-month sentence and Sergei Gorbachev, the director of a construction company in the central Russian city of Tula, received 18 months.
All three also face a two-year ban from France upon release.
The sentences were passed on the same day that French officials announced 20 more Russian fans would be deported because of what regional prefect Stephane Bouillon called “their participation in skirmishes linked to the England-Russia game”.
The 20 were detained alongside the three who were tried yesterday and included Alexander Shprygin, president of the All-Russian Fans’ Union, who has a role in Russian soccer’s governing body and sits on a commission overseeing Moscow’s preparations for hosting the 2018 World Cup.
Shprygin said that Russian fans had been unfairly victimized by French authorities.
“We consider (the deportations) a political decision,” he said, insisting that none of the 20 had been involved in the violence.
The men were among 43 Russian fans detained on Tuesday after their bus was stopped by French police near the town of Mandelieu in a check for hooligans.
UEFA has already told Russian soccer authorities that their team could be kicked out of Euro 2016 if there’s a repeat of the violence that surrounded its match last Saturday against England.
English soccer’s governing body has also been warned about the behavior of its fans but the team’s participation in the competition was not under immediate threat yesterday despite a fresh outbreak of fan violence in the northern city of Lille that required riot police to deploy tear gas.
The trouble in Lille on Wednesday did not reach the levels of Marseille where English fans were involved in three days of occasionally vicious fighting with Russians.
Local authorities said police made 37 arrests and detained 15 people in custody.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
