From March 3, Fan ID will be required for all RPL matches: what you need to know

An innovation that awaits all Russians: now you can get to the matches of the football Premier League only with a fan card. True, it is not necessary to take it with you, even going to the stadium. Correspondent “Izvestia” Dmitry Vakhnitsky learned all the subtleties.

For 10 years, only one missed match of your favorite team. Mikhail Perminov enters the stadium, where Ural plays once again, using the fan card. Yekaterinburg became one of the five cities where the new system was experimentally introduced last summer.

“Literally at the beginning of July, I sent an application, received it. Now it’s much easier, there are temporary centers near the stadiums, where a fan card is issued in 10-15 minutes“, – said the fan of FC “Ural” Mikhail Perminov.

From March 3, Fan ID will be required to get to any match of the Russian Premier League. Without it, they will not sell a ticket – neither at the box office, nor online. Before the start of the second half of the season, the service was checked in all RPL stands.

Everyone who will be at the stadium on the day of the match, even children, needs a fan card. Their parents will arrange it for them. It is not necessary to carry a card with you – a QR code is enough. For this purpose, such scanners are installed at the stadiums.

Almost half a million fan cards have already been issued throughout the country. You can submit an application in your personal account on the portal of public services. After the data must be confirmed at the nearest MFC. The Ministry of Digital Development promises that soon it will also be possible to do this remotely. There is also a special application – it will allow you to save tickets and enter the stadium even without Internet access. This was announced today at a press conference of the Ministry of Sports.

“We have set up temporary centers for work with fans at the stadiums, where you can get identity confirmation, issue an appropriate fan passport,” – explained the First Deputy Minister of Sports of the Russian Federation Azat Kadyrov.

And that’s what the fan card is for: last weekend, the Zenit match ended in scandal – Volga. At the end of the meeting, Ulyanovsk fans threw a banana at the Brazilian midfielder Wendel. In search of the intruder, the police had to make an identikit. Fan ID would help identify the bully faster.

Exactly the same disgrace happened in 2011, recalls Gadzhi Gadzhiev, he was then the coach of the Anji club. In the game with “Wings of the Soviets” a banana flew to Roberto Carlos. The legendary player was so offended that he immediately removed the captain’s armband and left the field.

“Just like there are some rules for the behavior of players on the field, there are some rules for the behavior of citizens on the street, exactly the same rules of behavior should be clearly spelled out in stadiums. Fan ID in this case, control over compliance with the rules of conduct”– said the honored coach of Russia Gadzhi Gadzhiev.

Yury Chulanov has been a fan of Samara’s Wings of the Soviets since childhood – once his father brought him to the game, now he himself takes his son to the matches, in the company of his grandfather. He says that for him the fan card is a guarantee that there will not be an inadequate person nearby.

“First of all, it is safety at the stadium. Anyone present at the stadium must have confidence that he is surrounded by “clean” fans, so to speak,” – said the fan Yuri Chulanov.

When it became known about the introduction of the fan card, the fan movement was divided. Some took the idea hostilely, and even stopped going to matches. By the way, the fan card is obligatory for all staff at the stadium, and even for the players themselves. All are on an equal footing.

“Of course, everyone should have a Fan ID – both VIP boxes, ordinary fans, and football players – after all, we had a good, positive experience with the World Cup when we had Fan IDs,” noted Dmitry Bulykin, master of sports of Russia in football.

Opponents of the fan card often cite England as an example – the world’s notorious football hooligans seem to have been defeated there without any Fan ID. In fact, the majority of British fans go to matches with club cards and season tickets and make sure to leave personal data when buying. In case of violation, they are easily found, and the court can prohibit attending matches. This happened to the Briton, who kicked the Arsenal goalkeeper, for which his native Tottenham banned the aggressive fan for life.