Russia picks up pieces after worst football riots

A Russian quoted in The Moscow Times summed it up. "I knew these kinds of things happened in England," he said, standing next to his smashed-up Volkswagen. "But to think it could happen here, that's just so painful."

Russia was trying to come to terms yesterday with its worst football riot. Two people died and 73 were injured, three critically, after thousands went on the rampage in central Moscow on Sunday after watching Russia lose a World Cup game 1-0 to Japan on an outdoor screen near the Kremlin.

A man who died of his injuries yesterday was the second to be killed. The Russian media reported he was a policeman stabbed while trying to control the crowds, but the Interior Ministry denied any police had been killed, and said police were trying to identify him.

The first to die was a 20-year-old man stabbed during the riots, police said.

The Moscow authorities said the city would reimburse those whose property was damaged when rioters went through central Moscow setting fire to cars and smashing shop windows. They also said they would stop showing World Cup games live on the giant screen near the Kremlin. But as they cleaned up yesterday, the question Russians were asking was: why?

Amazingly, given that it happened in Moscow, it appears that part of the blame lay in disastrously inadequate policing. It is not so long ago that the city was the capital of one of the most tightly controlled police states in the world. In Soviet times, a riot like Sunday's would have been unthinkable.

But the Moscow authorities have little experience of publicly screening sporting events in the centre of the city, and it appears they badly underestimated the size of the crowd. Only about 500 people turned up to watch the previous game, between Russia and Tunisia, on the screen opposite the Kremlin. The authorities were expecting a similar crowd on Sunday, and laid on only 120 police officers. About 8,000 fans arrived.

Alcohol was being sold on the street, and many of those watching quickly became drunk. Added to the mix was the bitter rivalry between Russia and Japan, and the fact that no one expected the underdog Japanese team to steal a march on Russia. When Japan went a goal up, some people stopped watching and started rioting.

There is a growing problem of football hooliganism in Russia. As in many countries, the hooligans like to wear the Union flag emblem to emulate British troublemakers.

Witnesses noticed sinister figures among the rioters on Sunday, shouting neo-fascist and racist slogans.

There has been an upsurge in racist incidents in Moscow in recent weeks: threats of a "war against foreigners" made to various foreign embassies, an Afghan man beaten to death on the metro, a Jewish boy badly beaten up by skinheads.

Five Japanese music students, a Chinese man and a US citizen of Indian descent were beaten up during the riots. In a separate attack yesterday, beer bottles were thrown at a dormitory for Vietnamese workers.

Some observers say the violence had its roots in Russia's poor showing at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. In Soviet times, in football as in winter sports, Russia was a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps, some say, the riots were the reaction of a country that is not used to losing.