All news

Announcer at Lokomotiv stadium to be punished for disrupting minute of silence

I was very upset by the situation

MOSCOW, May 14 (Itar-Tass) - A public address announcer of the Lokomotiv stadium will be punished for disrupting a minute of silence for people who fell in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 ahead of a match against CSKA (1:4) of the 28th round of the Russian Football Championship, Sergei Cheban, the executive director of the Russian Football Premiere League, said.

"I was very upset by the situation. Victory Day is holy for us. We decided to hold a joint action. The attitude was serious at all stadiums where the action took place. The text was changed slightly for the Lokomotiv stadium. We wanted to pay tribute to the club veteran Vitaly Artemyev. All the changes had been approved at a pre-match conference. However, the stadium’s public address announcer, because of heat or worry, thought that the minute of silence should be observed after the national anthem.

Lokomotiv’s President Olga Smorodskaya said that the public address announcer would be punished. “It’s a good lesson for us. I am sad that it all happened that way,” she said.