Russia to ‘punish’ fans over racist Pogba, Dembele chants

Seven fans suspected of racially abusing France players Paul Pogba and Ousmane Dembele during a friendly in Saint Petersburg “ should be punished ”, Russia ’ s World Cup chief Alexey Sorokin said on recently, National Daily learnt.

World football governing body FIFA fined the Russian football federation 30, 000 Swiss francs (25 , 000 euros ) after Manchester United midfielder Pogba and Barcelona winger Dembele were the target of monkey chants during the 3 – 1 French victory in March .

“ Seven people have been identified for these incidents . They should be punished , ” said Sorokin , the chief of the Russia 2018 organising committee, at a World Cup presentation in a Parisian hotel.

Sorokin said the punishments would be “five match bans or maybe, if the offences were serious enough, life bans ”.

“ Racist incidents can happen and we are no exceptions in Russia , ” Sorokin said . “In recent years, we have seen that the number of such incidents fall in international and first division matches.

He added that each World Cup stadium would have 1 , 200 cameras “ to identify anyone who might do something like that” .