Dangerous moment: football fans caught with banned symbols

Since the beginning of autumn, law enforcement agencies have detained several football fans for using Nazi symbols. The incidents occurred at two matches of the Dynamo Moscow and at one game of the Samara Wings of the Soviets. For more information about what happened and where the fans got these items— see the Izvestia article.

Forbidden symbols

On October 2, the Department of the Russian Guard for the Samara region reported that as a result of an operation conducted jointly with employees of the FSB and the Investigative Committee, three leaders of a group of football fans were detained. According to media reports, we are talking about The Opposition Young Supporters ("T.O.Y.S.", an organization recognized as extremist and banned in the territory of the Russian Federation). All three are suspected of recruiting new members.

Before that, on August 27, September 26, and October 1, two fans of Dynamo Moscow and one of Krylia Sovetov Samara were detained for trying to bring banned symbols to their teams' matches. In the first case, the police did not allow 43-year-old Yuri Veretsky to attend the match, who was wearing a Blue-White Dynamite Dynamo fan association scarf with the logo of not only the club, but also the 3rd SS Panzer Division "Death's Head". An administrative report was drawn up against the fan under Part 1 of Article 20.31 "violation of the rules of spectator behavior".

In the second case, 43-year—old Ildar Galiffurin was detained before the match in Samara, whose Dynamo scarf had a "Celtic cross" - part of the attributes of the fascists during the Great Patriotic War.

On October 1, before the Krylia Sovetov-Sochi match at the Samara Arena Solidarity Stadium, Alexander Makarov, a Samara club fan, was detained, wearing the Nazi Wolfhook emblem, also known for being a symbol of the Azov Ukrainian neo-Nazi battalion banned in Russia. The fan has many tattoos with similar symbols on his body.

The retro scarves of FC Dynamo fans, which can still be found on free sale today, do indeed have an image of a "Celtic cross" on one end, and an emblem very similar to the symbols of the SS Death's Head division on the other, Izvestia found.

There have been cases where fans, according to the Russian Football Union (RFU), openly displayed Nazi symbols before. For example, in 2020, the RFU punished Spartak Moscow for fans demonstrating fascist paraphernalia at the Otkrytie Arena. The club's management was punished by closing one of the sectors on its podium for one match. The team was also fined 200 thousand rubles.

A personal decision

The incidents almost coincided with the high-profile resignation of FC Dynamo. On October 2, the club officially announced the resignation of Dmitry Gafin, Chairman of the Board of Directors, who had held this position since 2019. During his six years at the helm of the Blue and White board of directors, the manager seriously shook up the coaching staff and the team, and also twice led the club to the bronze medal of the Russian Championship, Sport-Express noted. The club did not explain the reasons for the personnel changes.

Izvestia's sources believe that there could be various questions about Gafin's activities, but the main one was a decrease in the team's performance. The start of the season for the "blue and white" turned out to be a failure. However, the high-profile arrests of fans also preceded the departure of the sports manager. Izvestia's sources generally did not deny the negative impact of such news on the reputation of the sports organization, however, at the official level, it is not customary to talk about the details of the explanatory work of the club's management after personnel changes.

— Everything that has been announced is true. Gafin made the decision, and the club announced it accordingly. It was quite unexpected," Pavel Pivovarov, General director of FC Dynamo, told reporters after the match with Lokomotiv.

At the same time, he did not answer the question about the symbolism of Dynamo, which is confusingly similar to Nazi attributes.

— Dynamo Football Club does all the necessary work with the audience, but cannot be responsible for the actions of fans outside the stadium. I don't think Dmitry Alexandrovich Gafin's decision is related to this incident, it sounds like nonsense. Moreover, the club's release says that it was his personal decision," Alexander Shprygin, one of Dynamo's oldest fans and the former leader of the team's fan association, told Izvestia, adding that the head is judged by sports results, and the club's recent results have been unsatisfactory.

The problem of responsibility

Since 2013, the "Rules of Conduct for spectators during official Sports competitions" have been in force in Russia, approved by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 1156 dated December 16, 2013. In particular, they say that visitors to matches do not have the right to insult other spectators at sporting events using any means of visual propaganda – items of clothing, banners, banners, and so on.

In Russia, it is forbidden to use any symbols and attributes that are confusingly similar to the Nazi ones. For example, the use of the SS division's Deadhead emblem is subject to administrative liability under Article 20.3 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation ("Propaganda or public display of Nazi paraphernalia or symbols").

As Alexander Shprygin told Izvestia, these emblems came to Dynamo scarves in the 90s and still some fans continue to wear such symbols, considering the "Celtic cross" to be just a "sight" and not some kind of symbol.

— We are talking about a single case when a fan tried to enter the stadium with a scarf from the 90s, which in those years were massively sold on clothing markets. And there is no way to judge the situation as a whole by it. Unfortunately, most people do not know the origin of such symbols and sincerely believe that they are wearing a vintage piece," he says.

In turn, Vsevolod Alekseev, the founder of the Association of Sports Fans, noted in an interview with Izvestia that any manifestation of neo–Nazism or racism among fans is unacceptable. It should be punished "to the fullest extent of the law," he added. At the same time, each case should be considered separately and it cannot be ruled out that among the fans and generally those people who visit stadiums, there may be people of extremely radical views.

— Now there is a FanID, a fan card, which provides for the individual registration of each fan and his admission to the stadium. But even despite its presence, a person can simply come in order to arrange some kind of provocation, sit on any podium and demonstrate what he considers necessary. There is a question of inspection measures and, as a rule, it is the responsibility of the stewards and control at the entrance to the stadium," he said.

The clubs, according to Alekseev, have repeatedly explained to their fan associations that the demonstration of prohibited symbols is unacceptable, especially since it is fraught with sanctions against the club's leadership from the RFU.

"But now there are fewer open Nazis: after the start of their war, they all, as a rule, left and joined the relevant pro—Ukrainian groups, although isolated cases are still possible," he concluded.