evidence to support this allegation. But it couldn’t be denied that Soltani’s Twitter account listed the following tweet: Standing in love and soldierly Islamic brotherhood with friends and family in Tahrir Square #R4BIA and #Anticoup. All of which meant that Vik’s conversation with the Colonel General was to no avail and the deportation would go ahead as ordered.
As soon as we heard the news, the players and staff gathered outside the front of the hotel and watched as, handcuffed, Soltani Boumediene was driven away to the airport. No one said anything very much but the mood was subdued and several of the players told me they were in favour of us all following Soltani back to London on the next available plane. In view of what happened next, it might have been better if we had.
The press had got hold of the story by now and by some fluke this included BBC World, which hadn’t had a scoop in two decades. Somehow they managed to persuade Bekim Develi to be interviewed about what had happened and Bekim proceeded to give the lucky reporter an even bigger story than the one he thought he was reporting.
Bekim was the only Russian in our team and took what had happened to Soltani very personally:
‘As a Russian citizen,’ he said, ‘I feel deeply ashamed by what’s happened here at the Nyenskans Stadium this afternoon. Soltani Boumediene is a friend of mine and has nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood. He does not support terrorism. He is one of the most democratically minded players I’ve ever met. How else could he have played for an Israeli football team for as long as he did? The Israelis never found cause to deport the man when he was with Haifa FC. But the Russian authorities think they know better than the Israelis. Of course this is merely typical of modern life in Russia: no one has rights and people can be arrested without trial as a result of a single phone call. And why does this happen? Because of one man who is above the law, who does what he likes, and who is accountable to no one. Everyone knows who this man is. He is Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia. He is of course just a man but I for one am fed up of Vladimir Putin behaving like he is the tsar or perhaps God himself.’
Bekim also announced that he was joining the Other Russia, an umbrella coalition of Putin’s political opponents. He even suggested that Dynamo St Petersburg was affiliated with the Russian FSB – the secret police – just as Dynamo Moscow had once been a front for the old KGB.
‘There are secret people in St Petersburg,’ he told the BBC, ‘members of the FSB who are in bed with certain businessmen who need to make their dirty money as clean as possible. A football club is a very useful way of laundering dirty money, which may of course be why these crooks started Dynamo St Petersburg in the first place. To wash their ill-gotten gains. Money that has been embezzled and stolen from the Russian people.’
All of which left Vik having to make several more calls in order to try to prevent Bekim Develi being arrested, too.
4
In Moscow – the next leg of our tour – things went from bad to worse. And this time neither racists nor Russia’s autocratic president had anything to do with it.
By now it was strongly suspected by almost everyone who knew anything about football that Christoph Bündchen, our young German striker, was probably gay. And in no way could Russia be described as tolerant of homosexuality, as the lead-up to the Sochi Olympics confirmed; it was not uncommon for Russian men to be beaten up on the streets of Moscow merely because they were suspected of being fond of flowers. All of which meant that as soon as Christoph touched the ball in the Arena Khimki, where Dynamo Moscow currently play their home games as they await the construction of the new VTB Arena, the crowd would wolf-whistle, make kissing noises and not a few even bared their pale, spotty backsides.
It was ugly and intimidating and
As soon as we heard the news, the players and staff gathered outside the front of the hotel and watched as, handcuffed, Soltani Boumediene was driven away to the airport. No one said anything very much but the mood was subdued and several of the players told me they were in favour of us all following Soltani back to London on the next available plane. In view of what happened next, it might have been better if we had.
The press had got hold of the story by now and by some fluke this included BBC World, which hadn’t had a scoop in two decades. Somehow they managed to persuade Bekim Develi to be interviewed about what had happened and Bekim proceeded to give the lucky reporter an even bigger story than the one he thought he was reporting.
Bekim was the only Russian in our team and took what had happened to Soltani very personally:
‘As a Russian citizen,’ he said, ‘I feel deeply ashamed by what’s happened here at the Nyenskans Stadium this afternoon. Soltani Boumediene is a friend of mine and has nothing to do with the Muslim Brotherhood. He does not support terrorism. He is one of the most democratically minded players I’ve ever met. How else could he have played for an Israeli football team for as long as he did? The Israelis never found cause to deport the man when he was with Haifa FC. But the Russian authorities think they know better than the Israelis. Of course this is merely typical of modern life in Russia: no one has rights and people can be arrested without trial as a result of a single phone call. And why does this happen? Because of one man who is above the law, who does what he likes, and who is accountable to no one. Everyone knows who this man is. He is Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia. He is of course just a man but I for one am fed up of Vladimir Putin behaving like he is the tsar or perhaps God himself.’
Bekim also announced that he was joining the Other Russia, an umbrella coalition of Putin’s political opponents. He even suggested that Dynamo St Petersburg was affiliated with the Russian FSB – the secret police – just as Dynamo Moscow had once been a front for the old KGB.
‘There are secret people in St Petersburg,’ he told the BBC, ‘members of the FSB who are in bed with certain businessmen who need to make their dirty money as clean as possible. A football club is a very useful way of laundering dirty money, which may of course be why these crooks started Dynamo St Petersburg in the first place. To wash their ill-gotten gains. Money that has been embezzled and stolen from the Russian people.’
All of which left Vik having to make several more calls in order to try to prevent Bekim Develi being arrested, too.
4
In Moscow – the next leg of our tour – things went from bad to worse. And this time neither racists nor Russia’s autocratic president had anything to do with it.
By now it was strongly suspected by almost everyone who knew anything about football that Christoph Bündchen, our young German striker, was probably gay. And in no way could Russia be described as tolerant of homosexuality, as the lead-up to the Sochi Olympics confirmed; it was not uncommon for Russian men to be beaten up on the streets of Moscow merely because they were suspected of being fond of flowers. All of which meant that as soon as Christoph touched the ball in the Arena Khimki, where Dynamo Moscow currently play their home games as they await the construction of the new VTB Arena, the crowd would wolf-whistle, make kissing noises and not a few even bared their pale, spotty backsides.
It was ugly and intimidating and
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