Faced with the suggestion of some deputies not to participate in the competition in retaliation from the Kremlin, the minister responded that the best response that could be given to this was for England to play the World Cup in Russia and win it.
“If we win, we will prove that we have the best football team in the world, and that should be the goal,” the minister said.
The United Kingdom announced that no dignitaries from the country would attend the event, but did not recommend that citizens cancel their trips.
Hancock made the comments a day after Boris Johnson, the UK Foreign Secretary, compared Russian President Vladimir Putin's stance on the World Cup to Adolf Hitler's propaganda use of the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Hancock added: “I will not criticize Boris Johnson on this issue. The most important thing is to protect the safety of our players and fans.”
The minister explained, in an interview with the BBC, that his comment referred to a “specific question,” and that “it is certain that this – winning the cup – will only be a very small part of the state’s response.”
The poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who were found unconscious on March 4 in a park in the English city of Salisbury, shook relations between the United Kingdom and Russia, as London accuses the Kremlin of responsibility for the attack.
