Gloucester respond to complaints over Russian flag

Gloucester Rugby have removed international flags from capped players' shirts moving forward following complaints from some fans and the Ukranian community.

The Gallagher Premiership club received criticism for printing the Russian flag on the back of Kirill Gotovtsev's shirt in contravention of the country’s widespread ostracism from international sport.

Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has been banned from multiple global sporting competitions and hasn't played Test rugby for nearly three years.

The 37-year-old Russian international, who has made 15 appearances for his country, was spotted wearing the offending shirt during the Cherry & Whites' 36-20 win over Sale Sharks last weekend.

An X user posted: “As a @?gloucesterrugby supporter & grandson of Ukrainians I find it wrong that Gotovtsev is allowed to wear a Russian flag on his shirt, especially in a city that has a prominent Ukrainian community very poor.”

RugbyPass has seen a response from the club to one of the complainants, which confirmed the policy of putting the flags of capped players on their jerseys has been in place since 2021 when Gotovtsev signed for the club.

The email went on to say. "We recognise the understandable sensitivity in this particular case and, as a result, we have removed international flags from capped Gloucester player's shirts moving forward. It is never our intention to cause any upset to our community and we apologise if that has been the case in this situation."

In addition to Gotovtsev, Gloucester's starting XV against the Sharks included eight other internationals, with the flags of Wales (Freddie Thomas, Tomos Williams, Gareth Anscombe, Max Llewellyn and Josh Hathaway), Argentina (Mayco Vivas and Santi Carreras) and Chris Harris (Scotland) also on show.

Quite what those players and the club's other internationals make about the decision to remove national flags from their shirts remains to be seen.