Do you agree with Tina or Zarema?

From the new season in the Russian Premier League, the law on Fan ID comes into force, which has become another bone of contention in Russian football. A fan card must be issued to all those who want to visit the match arenas RPL – fans, stewards, employees mass media and so on.

It will be possible to issue a Fan ID from 4th July 2022 and everything is not as convenient and simple as we have been told. Yes, the application is submitted electronically on the state services portal, but you can’t help but visit the MFC. There you will have to present your passport and confirm your identity.

From the start of the 2022/23 football season, Fan ID will have to visit stadiums in five cities: Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Samara and Sochi. Until the end of 2022, they promise to connect other cities that host matches RPL: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Khimki, Grozny, Krasnodar, Orenburg, Voronezh, Grozny.

There are some doubts that the implementation of the system in the field will go smoothly from a technical point of view, but the information support of the “fan ID” is powerful. If you see how a famous person is campaigning for a Fan ID, don’t doubt for a second that they express their honest, simple and never partial opinion. Well, you have an idea.

Tina Kandelaki, Deputy Director General of Gazprom-Media:

New stadiums, comfortable entrance groups, many turnstiles and structures, welcoming halls under the stands and a pitch at a safe distance. You and I have gone forever from 1990s football, where there was often no lawn on the pitch, no food on the buffets, and the rows along the iron frames stretched for nearly a kilometer. Now it is not the police who work with the fans, but the educated administrators, the families go to football, and this is truly a great sporting event. In order to make the visit to the stadium as safe as possible, an electronic fan card is introduced.

Absolutely in the trend of digitization, the application for the card is presented in a few clicks on the website of the State Services. It will only take a visit to the MFC to verify identity and we know it’s now 15 minutes. Your tickets will be securely stored in your personal account with the State Services. They can be transferred or given to friends. The FIFA World Cup, which took place in Russia and became the best in history in terms of organization, used the same system. Come to games with friends, spouses and children. Our clubs and soccer players especially need our support now.

Zarema Salikhova, former Spartak board member:

Tina Givievna, speaking softly and tantalizingly about Fan ID, flirts with the audience in the “Association”. However, for the new generation, who have not seen the Sberbank checkout lines and know no food stamps, the concepts of MFC and “State Services” cause the same horror as the phrase “a brand new paddy wagon with services.” Therefore, the rumor is frankly false, but what to expect from a Match employee. There are so many subscribers in the channel accounts and on the topical topic of the introduction of the Fan ID, to which everyone from Kaliningrad to the Far East cannot be indifferent, you can find only rare comments from the series: “How beautiful you are!” Something is wrong here. And I’m not talking about looks. In short, even a duet with Chebotina cannot sell Tina an elephant as Fan ID.

Although at the entrance to the MFC they hand out free concert tickets and an annual subscription to the Match channel with patches to boot. My opinion is that in current realities, when people need to be distracted and mentally discharged, in a difficult economic situation, every fan is important for the clubs, the introduction of the passport is a crazy blow to the turnout of our stadiums, a decrease in the profitability of the sector and, of course, the lack of entourage. Personally, I will not go to the MFC. To get started, make the most convenient and shortest online registration at all stages RPL install the equipment not at the expense of the clubs, so the choice is up to the fan.

Alexey Andronov, football commentator:

A master of speaking with the mouth: Russia in miniature. What is the power and the state, not the country. It is infinitely distant from people, from their thoughts and desires. All these figures live in another Russia, where the people who invented, who have endowed with those qualities they want to see in the servants, have to look each other in the mouth and clap with a snap of their fingers. They don’t know real life, because they don’t live it. And due to the stained glass of the Ferrari Enzo, this life is not visible. I tried in vain to figure out how you could be torn to pieces by vandals (c) Igor Talkov.

Sergei Burlakov, Deputy Head of the Sports Committee of the State Duma:

I know the indignation of many fans for this. In my opinion, an electronic fan card is a modern and civilized thing. The task is to make the system of accessing objects more comfortable and secure. I am sure that all indignation will cease as soon as the fans have passports, and then they will use all the comforts of this system.

Pavel Pivovarov, CEO of Dynamo:

The position of the club is as follows: the audience goes to Dinamo, the attendances grow. We want to continue this trend and now we have a few months, until March 2023, to see how other stadiums launch the fan card admission system. We urge our fans to treat this situation with understanding. The club will do everything to ensure that our spectators’ path to the stadium is as comfortable as possible. We really hope that the fans will continue to come to the stands and support the team.

Aleksandr Dyukov, president RFS:

We didn’t argue with the fans. It will be a shame if the boycott is supported by fans from other clubs. You know our position: a federal law has been passed. Of course, there is nothing good about losing the active side of the fans. It’s a big loss – it’s important that clubs keep their fans. But we see that clubs are betting on attracting a familiar audience. But once again: the situation is now in dynamic. We hope that a compromise will be found.

Andrey Kanchelskis, former Manchester United and Russian national team player:

New season RPL establish an attendance record. And therefore people already have enough difficulties, so now it is impossible to enter the stages as a human being. Idiotic decisions are ruining our football, which is already in a hole. Fan ID is a plague for all football fans. First, it will hit a few stadiums and then hit every sports arena. Delirium.

Grigory Ivanov, president of “Ural”:

I have spoken more than once on Fan ID. So far this law has been approved by the State Duma. And what can I do against it? My personal attitude: I am obviously against Fan ID. But now it is a law, and I am not the State Duma, I cannot cancel it. If it’s canceled, I’ll be happy. The law is the law. If the law is adopted, it will be introduced – we will apply it. And so obviously I’m not very excited about Fan ID.