Racism in Russian football did not exist even a few years ago, veteran Russian footballer and coach Andrey Tikhonov told RIA Novosti on Monday.
The Russian league has been marred by racist incidents this season, with bananas thrown at Anzhi players Roberto Carlos, from Brazil, and Congolese defender Christopher Samba.
Tikhonov, who played in the Russian Premier League for 15 seasons between 1992 and 2008, with a one-game cameo this season, said he had never encountered racist behavior in his playing career, and suggested it was a new phenomenon.
“I played so much football, and there was never anything like that,” he said.
“There was always a shared language and no one paid attention to the color of someone’s skin. We never bullied or teased anyone.”
Tikhonov associated the change with a general decline in the behavior of Russian fans, whose conduct, he said, made games unsuitable for a family outing.
“How is it for women, for children, who want to go to the stadium? They come to the match and the swearing there, the negativity … It’s awful to allow children to go to the football,” he said.
The Russian football authorities are wrestling with a number of high-profile issues regarding racism, and recently forced second-tier side Torpedo Moscow to play three home games behind closed doors after two cases of prolonged racial abuse of black players.
In another case, Spartak Moscow are appealing against sanctions placed on their Nigerian striker Emmanuel Emenike, who received a fine and a suspended season-long ban after showing the middle finger to Dynamo Moscow fans he said had shouted racist insults at him.
