UEFA EURO 2016 France.

[TsarSamuil]

Ukraine is out, 3 losses, 0 goals

Euro 2016 Proved No Anti-Putin Conspiracy Theory Is So Stupid London Won't Pick It Up

The idea president of Russia has nothing better to do than, or has something to gain by, organizing football hooligan expeditions to Euro 2016 is the stupidest notion peddled by any government this side of North Korea

RI
Mark Nicholas 13 hours ago

Did you know that among all the scheming for the UK to leave the EU Putin also finds time to micro-manage Europe's football hooligan wars? Yupp, deep in his Kremlin lair pasty-skinned Vlad laughs maniacally as he plans 'hybrid warfare' on Europe's football stadiums.

At least that is what the British government, supposedly a serious government of a serious country, would like you to believe.

Over the weekend The Guardian relayed uncritically that unnamed "senior government officials" "fear" the 150 Russian hooligans who chased and dispersed legions of largely inebriated English football fans in Marseille last week were dispatched directly by "Vladimir Putin's regime".

Of course The Guardian itself tried to peddle the very same idiotic idea in an editorial on Thursday albeit it admitted in the same breath it had absolutely no proof:

Tracing a link between events on the ground and a political decision taken in the Kremlin is often a tall order. Russia’s power system is defined by its opacity as much as by its ruthlessness. Take the Panama Papers revelations, or the inquiry over the Litvinenko assassination in London: in public at least, irrefutable proof of political involvement was never produced.

In other words: we have no evidence whatsoever, but neither did we really have anything to back up the Litvinenko or Panama allegations and you seemed to swallow those, so maybe we can take you for fools once more.

It's funny how this works. Both, the comical British government and the most Russophobic paper in Britain want you to buy into this, but the idea is obviously so far fetched and idiotic that neither can bring themselves to make the accusation openly and stake their reputations on it.

Thus the solution: British "senior government officials" share their "fears" with The Guardian anonymously and the latter writes them down and publishes them -- without bothering to point out how laughable they really are.

Thus technically neither party and no named person is really on the record as pointing a finger at official Moscow, and yet the idea has been shared with the public who will hopefully go for it.

Thus the stupidity of the conspiracy theory being peddled is really the reflection of the low esteem Whitehall holds the British public in -- apparently they'll eat up anything or so their government and its propagandists think.

Will they really?

[TsarSamuil]

before the game i was thinking how awesome it would be if Iceland would beat England 2-1...I should have betted money on that..

In Paris on Monday evening they laughed as England slipped quietly out of Euro 2016.

Crowded outside bars opposite Gare du Nord, they laughed as the tiny TV sets showed England falling behind to Iceland. Later, they stood with hands clasped to astonished faces as Roy Hodgson’s team inched closer to calamity.

[TsarSamuil]

"SophieCo" They never walk alone.

RT Shows
Jul 8, 2016



Football fans have power to influence nation's political course - hooligan turned author.

Euro 2016 is drawing to a close. One of the most important football events, it was marred by widely reported fighting between the fans of rival national teams and brawls with the police. This kind of violence is not something unusual though - almost every major football tournament sees clashes between hooligans. What drives people to behave this way? Is it something about the sport itself? Is it just a way to blow off steam - or a culture of its own? We ask a man who knows all about football hooliganism. Best-selling author and the screenwriter of the award-winning feature, ‘Green Street’ - Dougie Brimson is on Sophie&Co today.

[TsarSamuil]

I hope some Polish take revenge and make those years very long for him..

English football fan jailed for pushing Pole he mistook for Russian onto train tracks (VIDEO)

RT.com
30 Jan, 2017 14:36

An English thug who pushed a Polish builder onto live train tracks after mistakenly believing he was Russian – in retaliation for violence between Russia and England fans at Euro 2016 – has been jailed.

Christopher Cole, 32, was jailed for 10 years for pushing David Pietraszek, a Polish builder whom he mistook for a Russian, onto the live tracks of the London Underground on June 9 of that year.

Violence marred the 2016 UEFA European Championship match between Russia and England at Marseille’s Velodrome last summer; after the match, Russian hooligans broke into the English fan area, continuing the violence which began in the buildup to the game.

The clashes led Cole, who has prior convictions for violence, to take his frustrations out on 21-year-old Pietraszek, as he did not want England to be seen as “wusses” (cowards), a court was told, the Guardian reported.

Cole, who was drunk, picked an argument with Pietraszek as the two arrived at Bond Street station in Central London. Both were returning from their respective workplaces.

As passengers begin to fill the platform, CCTV footage shows Cole hurtling towards Pietraszek, who is standing near the platform edge, before pushing him hard on the side. The force sent Pietraszek onto the live train tracks just seconds before a train arrives.

Luckily, Pietraszek managed to scramble back to the platform. He was saved from electrocution thanks to his rubber-soled footwear, but was treated at hospital for a broker finger and bruising to his back so severe doctors thought it was burns after feeling electricity charge through his body when landing on the track.

Cole fled the scene but was later arrested and pleaded guilty to attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent at a subsequent trial, during which he bizarrely claimed he was doing "the country's work." As he was being jailed he gave police the thumbs up.

The ruling came as this weekend, Vladimir Markin, the head of the Fan Safety Committee of the Russian Football Union, promised there will be no repeat of the ugly clashes between England and Russian football fans at the FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia.

“A repeat of the Marseille events won’t happen here, for a number of reasons,” Markin told the media after the first meeting of the Safety Committee on Friday, TASS reported.

“What happened in Europe and the way it will be here are two different things.”

Earlier this month, four fans of London club Chelsea FC were convicted of racist violence and given suspended prison sentences following an incident on the Paris Métro.

Chelsea fans chanted: “We’re racist, we’re racist, and that’s the way we like it,” as black commuter Souleymane Sylla was pushed off a carriage by members of their group who were in town to watch their side play Paris Saint-Germain in February 2015.

The FIFA World Cup will be played in 2018 at 12 stadiums across 11 Russian cities, taking place from June 14 to July 15. It will be the first time the tournament has been held in Russia.

January 30, 2017, marks 500 days until the beginning of the tournament.