Should the West boycott the Russian World Cup? Vote now!

Quote from BBC News

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has accused the UK and US of seeking to stop her country hosting this summer's World Cup.

Speaking in a lengthy interview with a Russian TV channel, she said their "main aim" was to "take the World Cup out of Russia".

The UK has been seeking to punish Russia after accusing it of mounting a nerve agent attack in Britain.

I would be very surprised if England do go Russia in the summer to play, but to show Russia how angry everyone is with their behaviour, should western countries have a mass boycott of the Russian world cup?

See this thread for background to this:

Russian ex spies attacked on British streets

That's a view shared by many Ron, and although I understand the reasons for keeping the things separate, Russia sees sport, a bit like the recent winter olympics, as an extension of spreading its power. As long as they don't get all caught doing drugs!

I think the Beijing olympics should've been boycotted too for the same reasons. The reason for western countries going to the Chinese olympics was they didn't want to insult the Chinese people and hoped the Chinese leadership would choose a different path. Since then, China has built artificial islands off other people's coastlines which they've turned into military bases and anointed a dictator for life.

By boycotting Russia, we would be sending a message that we're not happy with Putin. Whether the Russians care or can do anything about that, is another matter entirely.

Neither am I.

Quote from Nigel_Brooks

If Russia were favourites to win it , perhaps, as they will not however , all countries should go , sport has to be kept out of political spats as much as possible.

I always used to believe that sport and politics should be kept separate, but tend to find that any kind of relations between difference t countries tends to have at least some politics attached to it.