The United Kingdom’s top diplomat said Wednesday he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin will use the 2018 World Cup as a public relations opportunity in the same manner Adolf Hitler did with the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.
UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson spoke of the comparison while appearing before Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.
Labour MP Ian Austin told Johnson he believed “Putin is going to use it in the way Hitler used the 1936 Olympics.”
“I frankly do not think England should be participating in the World Cup,” Austin said. “I don’t think we should be supporting Putin using this as a PR exercise to gloss over the gross human rights abuses for which he’s responsible.”
Johnson said he agreed with Austin’s assessment.
“I think that your characterization of what is going to happen in Moscow, the World Cup, in all the venues—yes, I think the comparison with 1936 is certainly right,” he said. “I think it’s an emetic prospect, frankly, to think of Putin glorifying in this sporting event.”
Russia is hosting this year’s World Cup, which kicks off in June.
British Prime Minister Theresa May told Parliament last week neither ministers nor members of the royal family will attend the sporting event following the March 4 nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent and his daughter.
Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal were found unconscious on a park bench in Salisbury, England, and it was determined the two had been attacked with a military-grade nerve agent of the type developed by Russia.
The British government concluded Russia was behind the attack, and leaders from the U.S., Germany, and France agreed with that finding.
