Alas, the football will not be the sole focus at tonight’s Uefa Cup final. There is also a concern about possible racist chanting by fans of Zenit St Petersburg, as well as a worry within Rangers FC about how their own supporters might behave, at least in terms of the hymns they choose to sing.

The supporters of Zenit are the main concern, given the racism that blights so much of Russian football. Dick Advocaat, the Zenit coach, was prickly about the issue yesterday, though it was Advocaat himself who gave the subject much publicity with some scathing comments about his own supporters last month.

Advocaat said that the Zenit fans “don’t like black players” and that it had hindered his transfer dealings — the more you think about it, the more troubling that confession becomes.

Then Gerry Sutcliffe, the British minister for sport, spoke this week of his fears of racist chanting in Manchester being directed at players such as Jean-Claude Darcheville, the Rangers striker, who is black.

There will be 8,000 Zenit fans in the stadium tonight, and Advocaat reacted aggressively yesterday when asked about the issue.

“It is now an issue with you [in the media], I don’t know why,” the Zenit coach complained. “If you see Russian football there are lots of coloured players playing there. Why is it being built up as an issue now?

“Getting here has been a great achievement for both teams. Let’s not talk about other issues.”

When pressed on what Sutcliffe had said, and on what he himself had stated last month, Advocaat looked perturbed and became slightly unclear in his response. “He [Sutcliffe] must have more concerns than this,” Advocaat said. “This is a football match. This is not about colour.

“What I said before was, if they [the Zenit fans] make an issue of it, then don’t do it. It is not an issue now at Zenit.”

When pressed about what he had said about being unable to sign black players for Zenit, Advocaat retorted: “No, I didn’t say that!”

Walter Smith, somewhat reluctantly, was also drawn into the debate. Smith mentioned the problem that Rangers had with bigotry — the club received a Uefa fine and censure for sectarian chanting at Ibrox two years ago — and said that he did not think his players would be affected if chanting occurred.

“I don’t have a concern,” Smith said. “We’ve had problems with our own fans but I look purely at the footballing side of it. The other parts that we read about — the Zenit supporters — is like a problem we’ve had at our own club with the sectarianism issue. We are trying to adjust that, and I’m sure Zenit are trying to adjust their [issue] as well.” Asked if any chanting might affect Darcheville, Smith said: “It’s something that, if it occurs, you just hope the players can be mature enough to handle.”