Mass brawl sparks between Russian and Ukrainian footballers at hotel in Turkey

Football players of Russia's Shinnik and Ukraine's Minaj staged a brawl at a hotel in Turkey.

Royal Seginus hotel in Antalya confirmed the fact of the fight. Shinnik's press service also confirmed the fight between the players.

A RIA Novosti source said that Shinnik and Minaj footballers would be accommodated to different hotels.

According to Baza Telegram channel, several representatives of FC Minaj approached the head of Shinnik and started asking him to sing the Ukrainian anthem. He suggested that the Ukrainians go outside and "sort it out." The hotel staff intervened and managed to settle the conflict. After a while, several players of the Ukrainian club ended up in an elevator with a Shinnik player and beat him up. When the elevator arrived at the floor, there was a group of Russian football players there, and a mass brawl broke out between the Russian and Ukrainian footballers.

According to unconfirmed reports, Shinnik football player Ilya Gruznov suffered a broken rib, and Dmitry Samoilov — a broken finger.

The head of Minai press service, named only as Kostyuk, told Strana publication that “no one forced anyone to sing the anthem” and “there was no incident of beating of one person in the elevator."  According to Kostyuk, there was no fight in the elevator at all.

“It all started in the hall because of the shameful behaviour of a Russian football player, who was most likely drunk and started picking up to a hotel employee in the bathroom, when our player stood up to protect her," the Ukrainian said. 

“In the elevator, they started provoking us. They were shouting “Glory to Russia!”, "Come up to us, we’ll sort it out!" Well, we came up and sorted it out. How many Shinnik players were hurt? Do they write four? Well, there will be four. We have the whole team today in training, there are already photos in social networks. And Shinnik is now packing up and going somewhere," said Kostyuk.

The fight, Kostyuk added, was “a team against a team.” No one had any advantage in terms of numbers, he said. 

A Minaj representative said that the club asked training camp organisers that there should be no Russian football players in the hotel with them. The Russian team also requested there were no Ukrainian athletes in the hotel, Shinnik director Kulakov told RIA Novosti.

“The club did not know that the Ukrainian team would be staying at the hotel. We booked the hotel back in November, we did not want any Ukrainian football players living in the hotel with us to avoid conflicts. At that time, no one was there. Why the Ukrainian team appeared in the hotel is a question for the hotel management," said Kulakov.

"The most important thing is that the players are safe at the moment. What has been reported about their injuries is yet to be established," he added. 

According to Kulakov, Russian football players did not start the fight. More details will be published on the website of the football club soon, he added. 

It was later reported that the Russian team decided to move to another hotel.