ABSTRACT
The chapter applies the concept of security governance to the 2018 World Football Cup held in Russia, focusing mostly on the organization of surveillance and measures of control required by FIFA and applied by the Russian government: cameras, fan IDs, police control, security checks, various restrictions, etc. The study starts with an overview of the existing approaches to mega events as battlegrounds in the global war on terror, and then continues with explaining how non-Western/illiberal regimes use the global security concerns for putting into practices new mechanisms of regulations and prohibitions justified by the high status of the mega event and the ensuing risks each host country has to face. The authors use as a case study Yekaterinburg, one of 11 co-host cities of the World Cup. Empirical material comes from participant observation, interviews (with urban residents, fans, local organizers and activists, policy experts, etc.), and media analysis.
