Not so long ago I was comparing the atrocities committed by English fans at the Euro 2020 final in London to the atmosphere of friendliness and sporting celebration at the World Cup in Russia three years ago
Apparently the destruction and pogroms in Britain were far more serious than we were initially shown. London has taken a serious look into it.
As it turned out, the number of hooligans entering Wembley without tickets is in the hundreds and thousands, rather than “dozens of members of the fan community” as initially reported. And the hooligans planned their actions in advance on social media, and coordinated via messengers during the assault. One of the closed groups had several thousand members.
Another thing that came to light was that Wembley was guarded by stewards rather than police officers. The organisers simply decided to save money and not involve the police department in just the most important football competition in two years.
Indeed, what harm can come of thousands of emotional and not just emotional young men watching the main game of one of the most important sporting championships in England, with which football hooligans are associated as much as 5 o’clock tea, the royal family and murders unraveled for centuries.
The pogroms in the city have also proved quite violent. So much so, that not only the businessmen whose shop windows were smashed, but also the legendary director of musicals Cats, Phantom of the Opera and rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, Andrew Lloyd Webber, were outraged (his theatre also suffered from the rampaging crowd).
There’s more. Having analysed the fans’ chants and slogans, the public were shocked to see openly racist and neo-Nazi messages. B.Johnson openly called for social networks to respond, but experts fear that the only conclusion that the authorities will draw from this whole story is that the already tightened screws of government control in the social networks should be tightened.
All in all, the picture turned out to be very unsightly, unsportsmanlike, so to speak. If London once again “expresses concern” about the enforcement of law and order, their “insufficiency” or vice versa, their “excessiveness,” the answer could simply be a compilation of British achievements in this area in 2021 with a question: Have you got your house in order?
Maria Zakharova