The Foreign Office has sought to play down the threat made by Boris Johnson that the UK might boycott this summer’s football World Cup in Russia in response to allegations the Kremlin poisoned a former KGB spy and his daughter on British soil.
Responding to an urgent question in the Commons, the Foreign Secretary said England’s participation in the tournament could be in doubt if Russia was found to be behind the suspected poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal.
Johnson told MPs that Russia would face a “robust” response from the UK, including further sanctions, if the claim was confirmed and labelled the Kremlin a “malign and disruptive force”.
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“Thinking ahead to the World Cup in July, I think it will be very difficult to imagine that UK representation at that event could go ahead in the normal way, and will have to think on that,” he said.
The Foreign Office was quick to clarify that Johnson meant officials, dignitaries and politicians could stay at home, rather than players. But his comments have still put the England football team’s presence at this summer’s tournament “in jeopardy”, says The Daily Telegraph.
HuffPost UK says the Foreign Secretary “is facing demands to return to the Commons and explain himself”, following the apparent backtrack by his own department.
A source close to Johnson said he was not talking about “our boys” in the England team but “was trying to show the range of hard and soft power available to show our international displeasure”.
The threat to boycott the tournament has drawn a stinging rebuke from the world of football and divided politicians outraged at what appears to be another Kremlin-sanctioned assassination attempt on British soil.
Gary Neville, the former England player and assistant manager, branded Johnson a “useless fool”. Labour MP Toby Perkins said the consequences of England pulling out of the World Cup were “absolutely massive” for the travel industry, business and “tens of thousands of supporters”.
However, fellow Labour MP Anna Turley said the threat to walk away from the tournament was “the right course of action, not least for this but also for [Russia's] actions in Syria”.
The Russia World Cup, which kicks off in just under 100 days, is already set to be “the most political and politicised World Cup ever, and maybe the most political and politicised sporting event ever”, says The Independent.
Since the country won the right to host the World Cup in 2010, relations between Russia and the West have plunged to their lowest levels since the Cold War.
Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 prompted severe sanctions from the West and Russia has since faced accusations it sought to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election and Brexit vote.
Boris Johnson may have been bluffing when he threatened a World Cup boycott but, given the latest accusations levelled at Moscow, “it obviously makes an utter mockery of the platitudes that so many involved will spout at times such as this”, says the Independent: “that it’s not the moment to discuss politics, that politics and sport should just never mix”.
