Alexander Shprygin - Head of official Russian supporters group to be deported• Guardian revealed Russian’s far-right affiliations
• Shprygin travelled to Euro 2016 with official delegation
Alexander Shprygin and the Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin prepare to lay flowers at the grave of a Spartak Moscow fan.
The head of the official Russian supporters group, who was revealed this week to have far-right affiliations and be travelling with the official delegation, is among 20 fans being deported from Euro 2016 by the French authorities.
Alexander Shprygin was among 43 fans detained on Tuesday in southern France after serious violence marred Russia’s clash with England in Marseille.
“The delegation of the Union of Russian Fans, whose bus was stopped on 14 June on the way from Marseille to Lille, spent more than a day under arrest. Twenty people were later released and 20 others, including URF head Alexander Shprygin, were taken to a deportation centre from where they will be expelled from France within five days,” the Union of Russian Fans said on its website on Thursday.
“France’s authorities said they have taken this decision due to security considerations as they see a potential threat in these people. No other reasons have been provided.”
Trouble breaks out at the Stade Velodrome after the England-Russia match.
The Guardian revealed on Monday that the Fare network, which is used by Uefa to monitor discrimination within stadiums, had concerns about Shprygin’s racist views and far-right affiliations. He has previously been photographed performing a Nazi salute.
“The French authorities have made the decision to deport 20 Russian fans, another three are awaiting the court’s ruling. Also, nine fans were released in addition to the 11 already freed from custody earlier today,” the Russian Federation’s consulate general in Marseille, Sergey Molchanov, told the state news agency Tass.
Shprygin told the agency: “We will probably see our consul tomorrow. We will challenge this decision. It is an absolutely absurd award. We can challenge it within two days. We will ask for a lawyer. I was involved in no clashes or anything of the kind.”
According to Shprygin, the Russian fans are likely to be deported on Friday. “So, we have two days to challenge the decision of the French authorities. However, theoretically, they can take us to the airport already tomorrow morning.
“I have been given a resolution of Marseille’s prefect which says that according to information provided by the Russian side, we can be members of groups of active fans and hence allegedly pose a threat to security. So, we are to be expelled. I would like to stress: not deported but expelled. They are not deporting us with no right of further entry to the country, they are going to expel us. It means we will keep our visas,” he said.
He said that six more people representing associations of fans of Russian football clubs are currently kept by the police in Marseille. “They have been detained for further probe. They are heads of fan clubs of Moscow’s Lokomotiv, Tula’s Arsenal, Rostov, delegates from Moscow’s Dinamo and Orel,” he said.
On Tuesday, local law enforcement officials stopped a bus near Cannes carrying Russian football fans on the way to Lille to see their home team’s second group stage match.
Shprygin has been photographed giving a Nazi salute though he has denied having far-right leanings.
Around 150 Russian fans were said by French police to have been involved in a violent attack on England fans in Marseille on Saturday, following three days of skirmishes between England supporters, locals and police. At the end of the game in the Stade Vélodrome, Russian fans charged at their rivals causing them to flee.
Both England and Russia have been warned by Uefa’s executive committee that they could be expelled from the tournament if there is a repeat, but European football’s governing body is not expected to take any immediate action following skirmishes between police and fans in Lille on Wednesday night.
Shprygin is considered by the Fare network, which provides official observers at matches for Uefa and Fifa, to be a leading light in Russia’s network of extreme-right ultra fan groups. Piara Powar, the network’s executive director, said that the presence of Shprygin within the official party raised wider concerns about “the apparent nexus of high-level politicians, far-right leaders and extreme nationalism” in Russian football before the 2018 World Cup that will be hosted in the country.
Shprygin has been photographed performing a Nazi salute with a singer from a notorious Russian far-right rock band, Korrozia Metalla, some of whose songs are banned and included in the federal list of extremist materials in Russia for inciting inter-ethnic hatred.
Since forming the Russian Supporters Union in 2007, Shprygin has appeared to tone down his rhetoric. But he outraged many when he recently said he wanted to “see only Slavic faces in the Russian national team” and suggested there was “something wrong” with a team photo posted on Twitter by the France player Mathieu Valbuena because it contained “very many” black faces.
Shprygin works as an assistant to the politician Igor Lebedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s parliament, who also attracted controversy for a series of tweets on Sunday in which he offered support to the Russian fans. “I don’t see anything wrong with the fans fighting,” he wrote. “Quite the opposite, well done lads, keep it up!”
Guardian
