Russia’s World Cup Chief has likened LGBT campaigners to Nazis – saying they shouldn’t be able to express their opposition to the country’s anti-gay laws at the Winter Olympics.

Alexey Sorokin, is the boss of organizing committee for soccer’s 2018 FIFA World Cup to be held around Russia.

He was speaking to World Football INSIDER to defend Russia’s new federal anti-gay law that bans the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality to minors but has been used as a general crackdown on anyone supporting LGBT rights in the country.

Sorokin told INSIDER: ‘Would you like a World Cup where naked people are running around displaying their homosexuality? The answer to that is quite obvious.

‘The Olympics and World Cup are not a stage for various views… not for Nazis, not for any other ways of life. It should be about football and nothing else.’

Athletes or others who try to support the LGBT community at Sochi, for example by wearing a rainbow pin, risk not only arrest but also, as GSN revealed this week, being kicked out of the games by the International Olympic Committee who have their own anti-propaganda by-law.

Sorokin’s World Cup will be hosted by venues around Russia, including in Moscow, St Petersburg and Sochi.