RUSSIA’S HOOLIGAN ARMY, BBC2, 11.15pm
RUSSIA is hosting the 2018 World Cup and some fear terrible violence at the tournament given that Russia’s hooligans are rivalling the English fans of the 1980s in their reputation. So who are the Russian hooligans and, as was suggested by their tactics on the streets of Marseilles last year, are they organised?
The film-makers go to Moscow to meet the most notorious of Russia’s hooligans, such as The Mad Butchers, fans of Spartak Moscow who throw Nazi salutes at games. Their ringleader is Vasily The Killer, who grants an interview and says football violence makes him feel like he’s “on top of Everest and can do anything” and likens it to an orgasm.
He wants to fight the England fans – “these drunk chavs from Luton and Leeds and other English shitholes” – and boasts he and his mob were sent by Putin to “conquer Europe” and that Western civilisation is “in the garbage bin”.
Links are made between the hooligans and the new type of Russian masculinity promoted by Putin with his judo and horse riding: get fit and capable, not drunk and helpless.
MAFIA WOMEN WITH TREVOR MCDONALD, STV, 9pm
I ALWAYS enjoy Trevor McDonald’s documentaries even though I was sceptical when they first appeared.
In this two-parter, McDonald goes to New York to meet the wives, daughters and girlfriends of mafia gangsters, most of whom have not told their stories before.
The wives marry into this dangerous lifestyle despite the saying that “a wise guy should never be married”. But for the daughters there is no choice, and they need to cope with the wild contradiction between their father as he is at home and the violent man he becomes outside. Can the women overlook crime because of love? If so, what impact does it have on the family?
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