Moreton's relatives had previously said that he had gone missing and they had not heard from him since the previous week. The UK Embassy in Moscow were in touch with the Russian authorities in regards to this incident.

“On 10 July at 14:24 Moscow time he departed for Moscow on the additional Samara-to-Moscow train, and definitely arrived in Moscow and got off at the Kazansky Railway Station,” a spokeswoman said.

She added that the fan's arrival in Moscow was confirmed by the video surveillance footage and his “further actions are unknown.”

Samara's police said that they were verifying the information from the media as no reports about any missing foreign citizens have been submitted to police in the Samara Region.

A source said that the Moscow Police Department received a message from a Russian citizen, stating that the English fan, born in 1958, boarded a train from Samara to Moscow and after that all communications with him were lost.