Warsaw will not oppose march by Russian fans
Reuters - Thursday 07 June 2012, 16:34
Warsaw has no plans to reject any
request by Russian fans to march through the city when their
team play Euro 2012 co-hosts Poland on Tuesday, despite concerns
that it could lead to violence because of tension between the
two neighbours.
"Of course we will accept the registration when it appears,
just as if we would with the Greeks, Germans, Spaniards or
Dutch," said Warsaw Mayor Hanna-Gronkiewicz Waltz, adding that
the city has not yet received such a request.
A spokesman for a Russian fan organisation told a Polish
television station it would apply to register a march through
the Polish capital to the National Stadium where Russia face
their Group A rivals.
June 12 is a national holiday in Russia.
The relationship between the two countries, already strained
by their common history, energy and security disputes, has been
further soured by charges from Poland's rightist politicians
that Russia was at least indirectly responsible for a plane
crash that killed Polish president Lech Kaczynski two years ago.
Russia blamed the pilots for the accident in which all 96
passengers and crew perished on April 10, 2010, in western
Russia. Poland said some of the responsibility rested with the
ground controllers at the tiny Smolensk airport.
Last month, Russian officials rejected calls to move their
squad from a hotel adjace nt to the presidential palace - a
rallying site for groups accusing Moscow of a cover-up related
to the plane disaster.