Russia World Cup Build-Up Dogged By Racism Claims

Russia is showing its best face to the world this week, staging the World Cup preliminary draw in St Petersburg, its most spectacular city.

This is the first landmark event on the road to 2018 and venue has been chosen carefully. The draw will be held in the Konstantinov Palace, Peter the Great's attempt to create his own Versailles on the Gulf of Finland.

President Vladimir Putin, a son of the city, shares his predecessor's affection for the palace, and has funded its renovation. In recent years it has hosted G8 and G20 summits. Now it is the turn of football leaders to enjoy it.

With such a grand setting and the presidential seal of approval - Putin will open the draw on Saturday - the very last thing Russia 2018 organisers wanted to be discussing was racism.

It is a subject that has dogged the Russian game ever since it was awarded the World Cup back in 2010. And, thanks to the abuse Emmanuel Frimpong says was hurled at him on the opening weekend of the Russian Premier League season, it is again diverting the international media.

The circumstances are wearily familiar. Frimpong, playing for Ufa at Spartak Moscow, heard what he says were monkey chants, and in frustration and anger gave the home fans the finger.

He was sent off and received a two match ban. After a brief investigation the Russian FA found no evidence to back his claim, the club was not sanctioned. Frimpong described the lack of action as "beyond a joke".

FIFA has asked for details of the incident, but World Cup organisers here say it was an "isolated incident". Alexei Sorokin, chief executive of the 2018 organising committee, told Sky that Frimpong's reaction was "exaggerated and excessive".

"I am certain this is not symptomatic of our society," he said. "These are individual incidents."

An individual incident it may be, but Russia does seem to have a lot of them. Monitoring group FARE recorded around 200 incidents in two seasons and this week said the Russian FA was "blind to racism".

Sorokin rejects that analysis, but there is no question the Russian game has issues to address that defy easy classification.

Zenit St Petersburg are the Russian champions, but two years ago their largest supporters' group the Landskrona published a manifesto calling on the club not to select black or gay players.

The club has since disowned those views but we did not have to wait long to find some supporters who agreed with them. They were in a minority, but they were vocal.

There are many here who say that the Landskrona message blurred genuine xenophobia with issues of local pride, and the desire for home-grown players.

And Andre Villas Boas, the coach known to English fans from his time at Chelsea and Tottenham, told us racism was no worse than that he encountered in England.

Whether he is right, the issue is certainly more complicated. Many clubs have supporters groups affiliated to extremist political organisations, and the patchwork of ethnicities and antipathies across this vast country add complexity.

A United Nations advisor to Russia 2018 said this week that to solve the problem Russia must first acknowledge that it has one.

"In Russia we have noticed that there is not a clear understanding of what racism means," Yury Boychenko of the UN Human Rights Commission told journalists.

"It is not a simple question of black and white. it is about ethnicity and language. The first thing is recognition there is a problem, and recognition is coming. But the authorities and officials in sport bear responsibility for what happens on the field."

The message was clear. Russia has to act to address incidents that continue to blight the careers of the black players trying to forge a career in a country that, in three years time, will welcome the world.