Sunday, December 30, 2012

Russian football club turns to sniffer pigs to solve fan flare issue

A Russian football club has made a surprising breakthrough in tackling the ongoing problem of unruly fans’ use of flares.



Deputy General Director of St. Petersburg based team Zenit, Yury Fedotov, has said that, in tests, pigs had proved to be just as effective as dogs at identifying hidden flares. He added that modern technology has nothing that could outperform either animal in this regard.

The  team Zenit made headlines in November when a flare thrown from the Zenit end of the stadium hit opposing team Dynamo’s Anton Shunin during a Russian Premier League game. Shunin was briefly hospitalised with eye injuries as a result.



Russian fans’ use of flares became a particularly high-profile issue after this incident, with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev calling for the culprits to face lengthy stadium bans. In Tomsk, a city in Siberia, soccer fans complained to prosecutors in November after a section of the crowd was soaked with cold water after flares were lit during a game.

4 comments:

Ratz said...

In any place other than siberia I'd say "damn right, soak the bastards", however given the weather forecast for Tomsk today is a high of -10C and a low of -25C, I suspect being that cold and wet could be deadly.

arbroath said...

I can't imagine it's good for one's health!

They also employ the hosing down of flare-wielding football fans tactic in the Czech Republic ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayFpZqpH6WQ

Ratz said...

Hahah :) Well, it's better than getting phosphorous in your eyes. Apparently in Northern Ireland, during the height of the asshattery, the police/army would put dye in the water cannons so it'd be easy to pick up the troublemakers even if they ran away.

Personally, I'd have put amoebic dysentery in it so they'd be on the loo for the next fortnight and keeping out of trouble.

arbroath said...

Heh!

I'd heard about the use of coloured water in Belfast but had never seen evidence of it.

Apparently it's quite popular in Uganda.