Bradford City fan Dmitry blocked from iFollow in Russia

Dmitry Nechiporenko is among the overseas subscribers who pays to keep tabs on the Bantams from his home in St Petersburg.

A City supporter since the second Premier League season, Nechiporenko views as many matches as his job as a football scout will allow.

But the current conflict in Ukraine has had a knock-on effect – with the Premier League and EFL suspending their match feeds to Russia. That includes iFollow and other club streaming services.

The Premier League and EFL have blocked coverage in Russia

Nechiporenko wasn’t even told that the iFollow feed was being taken down – even though he has already paid for the full season.

He managed to use a virtual private network (VPN) to find coverage of the Hartlepool game but admits others, less tech savvy, will not be so fortunate.

“I’m really unhappy about iFollow,” he said. “It’s madness that they made the decision and I didn’t receive any email that it was blocked to Russia.

“With the relationship between the countries, of course this kind of thing might happen. But as a customer who has paid the money, I think this is disrespectful.

“I have paid a subscription for the whole season and they should have informed me and refunded this money because they are not providing the service.

“I had to find the information published in England because we were not told anything.”

France have also blocked any Ligue 1 games being shown to Russian audiences as well as the MLS from America. Russia’s own channels also briefly suspended coverage from elsewhere because of the well-publicised support for Ukraine.

Nechiporenko said: “For me, both parts of this conflict – Russia and the western countries that are united in NATO - are not correct.

“I could talk about politics hours and hours but now I want to make a point about football.

“The Premier League, Championship and the French league stopped any games being broadcast to Russia about two weeks ago.

“At the same time, Russian TV also stopped broadcasting some games because of the Ukrainian flags in the stands or Ukrainian colours in logos.

“But now, they don’t stop these games – they were showing the Champions’ League this week with the peace slogan on the pitch. That is not a problem at this moment.

“Russian channels have stopped this madness from their part but the western broadcasters continue in the same way.

“They still show games from Italy, Germany and Spain. But France, the MLS and England have stopped.

“The biggest problem is that iFollow is a special service, it’s not like a main broadcaster but it is still affected.

“They want to punish Russians and I understand iFollow follow the rules of the UK mainstream.

“But the people here will not blame Russian authorities, they will speak about this hypocrisy from western society.

“Many UK citizens also came back to the country from Russia but some will have stayed here. What have they done wrong to not be allowed to watch their football club?”

Nechiporenko works in scouting for Cypriot club Aris Limassol – which has become more of a challenge with the current unstable situation.

“I travelled to Cyprus on February 24 and came back three days later to St Petersburg on the last plane by Aeroflot. It’s a big problem because it is very difficult to travel.

“Every month I go to Cyprus but now I need to go to Dubai before and then fly from there to Limassol.

“I don’t know how long this conflict will go on but it is madness.”

Nechiporenko has seen enough in the last two games to appreciate how City are changing under Mark Hughes. He has been impressed with the early glimpses.

“I really like the organisation defensively and it’s much easier for them to understand,” he added.

“Offensively in the box, players are filling the space with more quantity which wasn’t happening before.

“After they lose the ball, they try to go for more counter pressure to get it back in the highest possible position.

“And they are also playing with a freedom. Look at Gareth Evans, for example, he runs miles and he knows what he needs to be the best.

“I really like that Hughes gave Dion Pereira a second game in a row. For me, he was rusty against Forest Green Rovers which was understandable and it was difficult for him at times.

“He has explosive speed but he can’t keep that up over distance. But against Hartlepool, it was much better, you saw the build-up for the first goal and it was fantastic how he used his body.

“Of course it is early days, although I saw that somebody said if we win next nine games we will be in the play-offs!

“But I think we should use this end of the season as a transition for the new era. Maybe for next year it will be good.

“Watching from a long way, seeing them going to the fans for the second goal against Forest Green – that was something missing before.”