Fan ID got to the very fan – Newspaper Kommersant No. 52 (7497) of 03/28/2023

Perhaps the main problem in Russian football this spring, connected with the widespread introduction of Fan ID at the matches of the Russian Premier League (RPL), was drawn to the attention of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He instructed the government to take steps to “make it easier for citizens to use” the fan identification system, which has already been the main reason for the catastrophic decline in attendance at the national championship matches, and also provoked at least one high-profile scandal.

Vladimir Putin published assignment, according to which the Russian government, together with the autonomous non-profit organization Agency for Strategic Initiatives to Promote New Projects, should “take measures to simplify the use of football fan identification systems by citizens, primarily the disabled, pensioners and children.” The deadline for the execution of the order is May 1 this year, and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and General Director of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives Svetlana Chausheva have been appointed responsible for it.

In fact, we are talking about a very noticeable event associated with perhaps the most pressing problem for Russian football, which escalated just in March. From July 1, 2022 in Russia It entered into force the law according to which admission to sports competitions is carried out only subject to the mandatory identification of participants and fans – the law on Fan ID. To purchase it, you must register on the Gosuslugi portal. The football championship became the testing ground for the introduction of the system. Against him protested loudly fans of different clubs, including those that belong to the “upper echelon” of the RPL, threatening to boycott its matches and carrying out threats.

Demarches by loyal club fans who equated the fan card with a violation of personal freedoms, and simply the unwillingness of citizens to go through the procedure for issuing it, were in fact unanimously recognized as a significant reason for the fall in attendance in the fall.

At the same time, in last year’s part of the championship, the fan identification system was used only at five stadiums: in Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Samara and Sochi. All cities hosted the games of the 2018 World Cup, and the then successful experience of using the system was the basis of the law on Fan ID, which, as Maksut Shadayev, the head of the Ministry of Digital Development of the Russian Federation, said in January, about 350 thousand people issued it. After the restart of the championship, which took place on March 3, the system was extended to all RPL stadiums, after which it happened not just serious, but catastrophic fall demand for her matches among the audience.

Average attendance the first tour after the resumption of the season was 7580 people, and this was a record low figure for the Russian elite division. Sports functionaries, however, tried to explain it not only by the “Fan ID effect”, but also by other factors – for example, bad weather. However, subsequent events, in fact, destroyed this hypothesis. The fact is that the next two rounds beat the anti-record. The average attendance of the 19th round fell to 6192 people, and on the 20th, which took place the weekend before last, before the pause for the matches of the national teams, to only 5006! Moreover, within its framework, none of the eight meetings gathered at least ten thousand people, including the hit match in which CSKA hosted Zenit.

The fact that Fan ID is to blame for the crisis is also evidenced by this fact. The audience of the matches of the second-ranking Russian football division that took place in March was larger than the audience of the matches of the top division. And the Sunday meeting of the Russian national team with a modest Iraqi team, which was played at the home stadium of Zenit, the Gazprom Arena, gathered more than 23 thousand fans – the national championship cannot even dream of such figures today.

A heated discussion about the advisability of using Fan ID in the form in which it is used now has been going on for several weeks not only in the football community, but also in political circles, but with the idea of ​​its abolition spoke some deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation and the Moscow City Duma. It seems to have been exacerbated by the scandal that occurred in mid-March and received quite wide publicity in various media resources, which told the story of how employees of the stadium of the Yekaterinburg club “Ural” for a long time did not let a married couple with three children (in As a result, the family was still allowed to go to the podium). They explained their actions by the fact that the youngest of them, a seven-month-old child, did not have a Fan ID.

The incident was recalled even before the publication of Vladimir Putin’s order, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, who called it “mockery”, saying that it is necessary to “at least correct” the rules for using Fan ID, which causes “many complaints and questions.” In Mr. Medvedev’s opinion, at the moment it is taking on “completely absurd forms.”

The Russian authorities have already reacted to the criticism of Fan ID before. But in fact, all the adjustments were reduced to the launch of the Ministry of Digital Development of the Russian Federation in a pilot mode of a new procedure for issuing a fan card through the State Services exclusively in an online format, without visiting the MFC.

Andrey Malosolov, one of the founders of the All-Russian Association of Fans, which existed from 2007 to 2016 and played an important role in the fan movement, hopes that “if Dmitry Medvedev is criticized about Fan ID, and after that the president orders to simplify the procedure, this is already movement in a positive direction.

“In any case, it was no longer possible to hush up the conflict. The situation has reached a stage where it needs to be reset and agreed on everything anew. An almost 80 percent drop in championship attendance is a disaster, ”he told Kommersant, comparing the Russian case with the Italian one. In Italy, in the middle of the last decade, they already introduced an analogue of Fan ID, but literally a year later they radically softened the system, faced with opposition to it in the fan community.

According to Andrey Malosolov, “Fan ID should be left at international competitions, which Russia will sooner or later host again”: “It has proven itself as a marketing and comfort tool at the 2018 World Championships, free travel on public transport. But at Russian competitions, his work turns into a theater of the absurd. What can we talk about if Zenit officially pays extra to its fans (now – 800 rubles) to come to the stadium, but attendance does not grow from this?

Alexey Dospekhov