The World Cup, which ended in Russia, has attracted the attention of hundreds of millions of people around the world. Among them are not only athletes, sports functionaries, sports fans and fans, but also a large extent of PR experts, political scientists and experts.
This is not surprising. The championship was initially doomed to a role andvalue that went far beyond the sports dimension.
Of course, any international event of this magnitude is already a policy. But the world does not remember such a strong presence of politics in sports since the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Apart from, of course, the recent Olympic Games, where the West wanted to publicly flog Russia, but flogged only itself, undermining the credibility of the world sports system.
The world sports festive day as a contrast background was preceded by a barrage of anti-Russian hysteria unprecedented in its intensity since the Cold War.
The Western countries media and their satellites unleashed a real campaign of intimidating football fans of their countries already at the stage of preparation for a trip to Russia.
One of the examples of such publications we see on the pages of the British edition of Daily Star, which quotes the representative of one of the groups of ultra Smoggies Elite.
"Radically tuned football fans from the UK are planning to get it out with Russian fans during the upcoming World Cup. Football fans are going to protect other English fans who will come to the World Cup. In Russia, there is no such thing as protection, so 24 thousand spectators from the UK will be like chickens in a slaughterhouse, "the respondent says.
According to him, at the World Cup 2018 several radical groups are going to go together. They want to "smear on the wall" fans from Russia and show them "real hell." As the interviewee noted, "this will be a world war - the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh," adding that possible arrestsdo not bother British fans.
Similar publications, interspersed with a description of the terrible conditions in which athletes, fans and journalists are to live, have numerous publications in Western countries.
People were frightened by "unfriendly Russians", criminals. Those who came to Russia were threatened by tens of thousands of hungry bears, drunken prisons called vitrezvitel, and Russian fanatical killers who would give any foreign fan hell. It is noteworthy that to illustrate the "bloodthirstiness" of Russians, was used a photograph of the fistfights that are held during Maslenitsa. All this Russian dullness, do not let the tabloids stop, can be deadly dangerous. Allegedly by summer, "lions of the caliphate" will be brought to Russia - children who grew up under the wing of the IGIL banned in Russia and allegedly ready to kill.
The words of the fan of the English national team Matt Maybery on his return from Russia can be considered a response to all the distributors of anti-Russian horror stories and gossips.
"I returned alive after two weeks in Russia. I was not attacked by bloodthirsty hooligans, I was not eaten by a bear, I was not poisoned or killed. The British media should be ashamed of the obvious propaganda against the Russians. It is absolutely cool country ", - wrote a fan in his Twitter.
Other fans from the UK also agree with him. Fans of the British team have complained that because of the campaign in the British press, many fans did not come to the World Cup 2018, and in vain, writes the British newspaper "The Times" 4.
His brother, John Hatter, said that at first in Russia he was afraid to wear a T-shirt of the English team, and then he became convinced that such security measures were not needed. "We saw that everyone treated us so friendly that we put them on," he said.
The Sun complains that English fans arrived at the World Cup less than they could, and it was because of the replicated fables about Russia. If there was anything to upset the British in Volgograd on the match with Tunisia, then only the invasion of the midges and the controversial refereeing. The Independent cites the words of an English fan who managed to communicate with those who are calledwith horror in the British press the Russian ultras. In fact, everything turned out to be not so scary, and the British were plunged into a fiery football embrace - and there was no any cruelty. The Guardian also failed to find a single fan who would have a negative attitude about Russia. And two Britons told journalists that Volgograd was "fantastic", and they were already tired of hearing about any possible problems there.
The French AFP agency also echoed the British colleagues, quoting enthusiastic fans not only about their reception, but also about the amazing Russian culture and incredible football.
The anti-Russian horror stories are ridiculed also by German journalists. The German newspaper "Neues Deutschland" writes: "In the memory of many fans about the World Cup 2018 in Russia, will remain some kind of summer fairy tale, because foreigners in Russia were met by excellent weather and kind Russian people.
To say about the magnificence of the Russian national football team, is to say nothing. Nobody could count on such a game of Russian athletes. "
The German press also pointed to the high level of security of the championship, comparing the World Cup 2018 in Russia with the previous championship in Brazil. "In 2014, Brazil was also calm, but hundreds of cases of robbery and thefts during football matches were recorded. Russia showed a high level of security, distinguished themselves by zero incidents, "noted German journalists.
The Western press repeatedly intimidated its fans with "hooligans" from Russia. However, according to journalists of the newspaper Neues Deutschland, no hooligans were seen during the championship.
Similar publications appeared in other countries as a result of the championship, when two million fans from dozens of countries were already convinced of the falsity of the spreading anti-Russian fabrications. Western journalists were also forced to recognize the absence of hostility to foreign fans from the Russians.
Russia's ambassador to France Alexei Meshkov summed up the overall change in public opinion in an interview with RIA Novosti: "The World Cup in Russia has become an indicator that the horror stories of the Western press about Russia have nothing to do with reality. Even the media, traditionally critical to Russia, wrote about the good preparation of the championship and that it made it possible to learn Russia better. The media also noted Russian hospitality, clean metro stations, new stadiums, polyglot volunteers, visa-free entry to Russia and free trains for FAN ID holders, press centers for journalists in host cities.
In fact, the World Cup, for the first time in history held in Russia, played an important role in breaking the ice of hostility imposed by Western propaganda. The Western press, under the pressure of indisputable facts, was forced to change its anger at mercy and, to dilute its fabrications with a grain of truth.
For how long?
Inal Pliev, international affairs expert, specifically for IA "Res"
