Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has vowed “an unforgettable football feast” when his country hosts the 2018 World Cup.
After spending more than the $50 billion on this year’s Sochi Winter Olympics, Putin faces another astronomical bill for the tournament. The 2018 World Cup is Russia’s most ambitious project since the fall of the Soviet Union – but Putin is confident.
“We will do all we can to organise the event on the highest level,” he said after seeing Germany beat Argentina to close Brazil 2014.
“We successfully hosted the Winter Olympics and know exactly what a challenge it is to organise such an event.”
Putin claimed Russia wanted to learn from the experience of Brazil, which won plaudits for the tournament despite dire warnings of street protests, rushed construction and crime.
“We will do our best to present the world an unforgettable football feast and genuine Russian hospitality in 2018,” Putin told Russia’s state ITAR-TASS news agencies.
The World Cup presents a massive challenge with a radical overhaul needed of sports, tourist and transport infrastructure in a string of under-developed regions across the vast country.
Matches will be played in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Sochi, Volga region city Kazan, Yekaterinburg in the Urals, Kaliningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Saransk, Rostov-on-Don and Volgograd.
Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium, which hosted the 1980 Olympics, is being transformed into an 81,000- seat arena fit to hold the opening match and the final.
Spartak Moscow’s new 42,000-seater stadium goes into service in September while the 45,100-seater venue at Kazan, is already operational.
Saint Petersburg’s 70,000-seat Gazprom arena is expected to be ready in May 2016 and Sochi’s Olympic Fisht ground will soon increase its capacity to 45,000 seats. Elsewhere, a mammoth task lies ahead in building stadiums in six provincial cities from scratch and renovate the ground in the easterly city of Yekaterinburg.
