Russian World Cup football 2018 bid boss says England fans ‘utmost hooligans’

Russia 2018 World Cup bid chief Alexei Sorokin has launched a scathing attack on England fans, calling them ‘hooligans’.

Sorokin’s comments came after London 2012 Olympic Games Organizing Committee Chairman, Lord Coe, hailed England’s fans as the best in the world.

“I know Lord Coe well. He is a most decent person, but I do not understand what ‘the best supporters’ mean,” The Mirror quoted Sorokin, as saying.

“Maybe he meant that English football fans are the utmost hooligans. If that’s so, I am ready to agree and hand over supremacy to them. Wherever the English fans travel they create huge problems for the hosts. In this sense they are indeed ‘the best’.”

“As for our fans, going to away games they behave well. I may guarantee that as the Russian Football Union general director,” he added.

Meanwhile, talking about former Football Association Chairman Lord Triesman’s allegations that Russia and Spain were involved in a bribery scandal, Sorokin claimed: “We are in a state of information war with England.”

“In England they keep publishing stuff aimed against us. I must stress that we do not retaliate,” he added.