WE GO AGAIN
KEVIN McCALLUM: World Cup haze will not banish Russian stereotypes
Seven-and-a-half years ago, on December 2 2010, after Russia had been named as hosts of the 2018 World Cup, Vladimir Putin spoke at a media conference in Zurich. The tournament would open Russia to the world. It would bring light to the former Soviet Union. "A lot of stereotypes from previous times, from the Cold War era, fly all over Europe, and they frighten people," Putin was quoted as saying. "The more contact we have, the more these stereotypes will be destroyed." Eight years after the first and only World Cup was held in Africa, and a day before the kick-off of the tournament that Putin claimed would break down stereotypes, Tamara Pletnyova, the head of the Russian parliament’s committee for families, women and children, told a radio station that Russian women should not have sex with black foreigners because that would lead to the sin of them becoming single mothers of mixed-race babies. The Guardian reported that another Russian legislator, Alexander Sherin, warned: "Russian...
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