THERE must now be a real prospect, if only on safety grounds, that England will not compete in this year’s World Cup – and it is thanks to Boris Johnson.
That possibility became much more likely yesterday when the point-scoring between the Foreign Secretary and the Russian Government yesterday reached new levels, as Johnson compared Adolf Hitler’s propaganda at the Olympic Games in 1936 with Vladimir Putin’s expected self-promotion at this year’s World Cup.
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Safety for England’s fans was already a hot topic, but Johnson’s remarks have provoked outrage in Russia where hooligan gangs are rife – with Putin’s government doing relatively little to discourage them.
During his evidence to yesterday’s meeting of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in the House of Commons, Johnson was asked by Labour MP Ian Austin – who wants England out of the World Cup as a protest against Russia and because of fan safety fears – if the Foreign Secretary thought “Putin is going to use it in the way Hitler used the 1936 Olympics”.
Johnson replied: “I think that your characterisation of what is going to happen in Moscow, the World Cup, in all the venues – yes, I think the comparison with 1936 is certainly right and it is an emetic prospect to think of Putin glorying in this sporting event.”
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In Russia, which calls the Second World War the Great Patriotic War, as the Soviet Union lost more than 26 million people between 1941 and 1945, the comparison to Hitler enraged the Government and members of the public alike, and was further evidenced by responses on social media.
The Russian foreign ministry’s spokeswoman said Johnson was “poisoned with hatred and anger”.
Johnson said it would be “incredibly unfair to punish the team” by forcing England to leave the World Cup, but he also revealed that the number of ticket applications by English fans was just 24,000, compared to 94,000 at the same stage before the World Cup in Brazil in 2014.
“At the moment, we are not actively inclined to dissuade people from going,” said Johnson, but he acknowledged the fears over safety – at the European Championships in France in 2016, organised gangs of Russian hooligans targeted and assaulted groups of England fans.
The Foreign Secretary further revealed that the diplomatic official who was going to be responsible for English fan safety was one of those expelled as part of Russia’s retaliation over diplomats. Johnson said: “You can’t imagine anything more counter-productive to the UK’s ability to help fans in Russia, so there is an issue – there is a discussion.”
Asked by MP Priti Patel “are there any circumstances in which you might advise British fans not to go”, Johnson said the Government was not at that stage yet but he would not rule it out.
Away from planet football, Johnson maintained his line that Vladimir Putin was responsible for the Salisbury attacks.
He said: “The trail of responsibility for assassinations does lead inexorably back to the Kremlin. No matter how exactly it came to be done, the path of responsibility goes back to those at the top.”
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