Racism rules in Russia

So you’re young, black and gifted with a ball at your feet. European glory beckons. Where should you head to make your fortune? Not racist Russia, apparently. Nor any of the former Eastern Bloc states.

With post-communism billionaires such as Chelsea’s Roman Abramovich pumping millions into the Russian League, more than 200 foreigners have arrived to improve the standard of the ice-plagued domestic competition.

And nearly 60 of them are African.

Dynamo Moscow’s Senegalese defender, Pascal Mendi (25), claimed earlier this season: ‘In Russia they have two major problems. Racism and the language. I am frightened to go out at night in Moscow.

‘I have to stay at home because I am scared of racist attacks. I knew these things happened but after my first match I was attacked by three Russians on my 10-minute walk home. Luckily I’m quick. I ran away from them. That was my debut in Russian football.

‘I would like to play in France, but they don’t pay enough money.”

A couple of years ago Jerry Christian Tschuisse chose to leave balmy Cameroon for Chernomorets FC in the south of the vast Russian state after a spell with mighty Spartak in the capital, Moscow. And he explains just why the Russian Football Federation are attempting to combat widespread racism on the terraces.

Tschuisse recalls: ‘They shout ‘Hey, black man, why are you playing in Russia?’ and they throw bananas at you when you get near the touchline.

‘This ‘kick racism out of football’ thing is a good idea. You never know, it might actually change something.

‘I would only go out to shop for groceries. Unfortunately, they are plenty of young people in Moscow who hate blacks.”

Not just black people suffer. When Russia lost to Japan in the 2002 World Cup, Indian and Chinese immigrants were targeted as riots broke out, with cars set alight and shops looted.

Russia boasts footballers from South Africa, Senegal, Cameroon and even, improbably, Brazil.

Last season they brought the imports together to take on the Russian national side in a game aimed at calming racist attitudes.

Alexander Chernov, the national boss, admits: ‘Racism is here. It’s growing, and we have to control it as soon as possible. So this match is just the first step.”

At that match, one young Lokomotiv Moscow fan, a skinhead watching while police confiscated bunches of bananas at the turnstile, says: ‘Russia is for Russians. We don’t mind foreign players if they are white. We make monkey noises, or call the black players chocolate!”

Football journalist Alexander Bogomolov says: ‘The majority of supporters here don’t like black players at all. They think it’s better to see 11 Russian players, even if they are not very good, than to see half a team consisting of black footballers.”

And of course, it isn’t just Russia. In 2002, two of England’s black internationals, Ashley Cole and Emile Heskey, endured a tirade of racist chanting while playing against Slovakia in the European Championship qualifiers. Cole was hit by a cigarette lighter thrown by fans.

Thierry Henry, another Arsenal star, found himself on the end of racist chanting when he went to Holland to play against PSV Eindhoven, while similar reports appeared after matches in Spain, Serbia and Montenegro and Bulgaria.

Piara Powar, of anti-racism football organisation Kick it Out, says: ‘Many of these countries have not challenged the problem and have not had the same history of migration, they are in the same place England were 30 years ago.”

Quite how anyone can say that about Spain, a nation with a rich tradition of migration, I can’t quite understand.

But not all fans are racist. English football seems to have moved beyond the ooh-ooh chants of the 1970s while way back in 1992, German fans at FC Shalke 04 raised a banner denouncing fellow supporters for targeting Ghanaian international Tony Yeboah. The rest of the Bundesliga were soon wearing slogans on their shirts in support.