The International Football Federation (FIFA) has launched an investigation against fans of the Balkan team who decorated the stands with nationalist symbols.

Croatian football union can wait for serious sanctions, but this is unlikely to lead to the disqualification of the national team. The reason for the proceedings were the photos appeared on the Internet, made during the match of the group stage of the World Cup - 2018 between the national teams of Croatia and Nigeria. They are fans of the Croatian team posing with a flag with symbols of the Ustasha (the organization is banned in the Russian Federation) - nationalists who fought on the side of Hitler's Germany during the Second World War. The regime of Ustasha is implicated in the genocide of Jews, Serbs and Gypsies. As a result of the purges, more than 600 thousand.

human. With the flags of the Ustasha, the fans were photographed not only in the stands, but also in one of the fan zones of the championship. A bad initiative was supported by the Croats who supported their team in Austria. After the victory over the Russian national team, local fans went out and blocked the movement in the Viennese quarter of Otakring, celebrating their exit to the semifinals. The pictures captured not only the flags of the Ustasha, but also the Nazi greetings, which the fans congratulated each other. This scandal was a continuation of the story with the publication on the Internet of a video recorded by the Croatian national team defender Domagoi Vida, on which he cries "Glory to Ukraine!". The entry was intended for Ukrainian friends of the football player, who used to play for Dynamo Kyiv, but the journalists merged the message into the net, which caused a grand scandal. A member of the Croatian delegation, ex-player of the national team Ognjen Vukojevic, was deprived of accreditation by the decision of the national football union. He apologized to fans who might have been hurt by this video. FIFA fined Vukojevic for 15 thousand.

Swiss francs and issued a warning to Vide, reminding them not to politicize the tournament. These incidents will not lead to the exclusion of the Croatian national team from the tournament. The maximum penalty that the federation faces is a fine. In addition, the guilty fans may be deprived of the right to attend tournament matches. Nevertheless, all this is not the best way to affect the atmosphere within the team, which tonight will play a semi-final match of the World Cup against England at the Moscow stadium "Luzhniki". To smooth out the unpleasant impression that Croatian footballers and their fans made on our public in recent days, the head coach of the national team of this country Zlatko Dalich asked the Russian fans for support. "I am grateful for everything that was in the last month in Russia: at every step we are met as our own, and in every stadium for us are sick. Tomorrow we are waiting for support, including from Russian fans, this is another motivation for us. Football unites people all over the world, and we are grateful for such a warm welcome. We will always warmly remember these few weeks in Russia, thank you for your hospitality, "said Dalich at the pre-match press conference.

Episodes with political statements of Croats caused in Russia a different reaction. Actor Mikhail Boyarsky did not see in the act Views of nothing terrible. But the former goalkeeper of the Russian national football team, musician Ruslan Nigmatullin wished the Croats to return to their homeland as quickly as possible. Ex-athlete noted that the victory over rivals from the Russian Federation and the entrance to the semifinals resulted in "some dirty politics and propaganda" that are not appropriate for big football, the 360 ??TV channel.