MOSCOW, June 30, 2018 (BSS/TASS) – FIFA has fined the Russian Football Union 10,000 Swiss francs ($10,100) for “a discriminatory banner” which Russian fans displayed during the team’s group stage match against Uruguay, FIFA told TASS on Saturday.
In their group stage matches, Russia beat Saudi Arabia 5-0 and Egypt 3-1 and lost to Uruguay 0-3, taking the second place in their Group A and getting to the playoff round for the first time in 32 years at FIFA World Cups.
On Saturday, Uruguay play Portugal in the World Cup knockout stage at the Fisht Stadium in Sochi and Russia will face Spain at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on Sunday.
Russia is staging its first-ever FIFA World Cup, which kicked off in Moscow with a spectacular opening show at the Luzhniki Stadium on the night of June 14.
The country selected 11 host cities to be the venues for the matches of the 2018 World Cup and they are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara.
A total of 32 national football teams entered the 2018 FIFA World Cup and only 16 of them proceeded to the knockout phase after the group stage, which kicked off on June 14 and ended on June 28.
According to FIFA’s official statistics, the total number of fans at all stadiums during 48 matches of the group stage came to 2,178,894 people, which carries an average of 45,394 at each match.
The 48 already played matches out of all scheduled 64 games at this World Cup saw 122 scored goals (2.54 per match on the average), with the national team of Belgium scoring the most in its three group stage matches (nine goals).