Kissing Isn’t Goal, Soccer Players Told

A Soviet newspaper told the nation’s soccer players Saturday that celebrating a goal by kissing is a decadent Western habit that must stop.

The daily Sovietsky Sport also urged soccer players to put aside “garish” foreign-made uniforms for more traditional ones with red emblems and to behave with dignity on the field.

It said that soccer players who score goals “fall down on their knees and . . . sway like dervishes at a prayer session,” while “teammates, in a frenzy of kissing, throw him to the ground.”

“They kiss the prostrate player with such passion that it is a wonder they don’t end up injuring him,” the paper said.