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335650
Thu, 07/17/2014 - 15:19
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Russia’s southern Volgograd to remain on list of 2018 World Cup hosting cities

MOSCOW, July 17 (Itar-Tass) - Russia’s southern city of Volgograd will definitely remain on the list of the country’s cities to host the next World Cup, due to be held in Russia in 2018, the Russian sports minister said on Thursday. Vitaly Mutko, who is also the chairman of the Russia-2018 organizing committee, rejected earlier media reports that Volgograd could be excluded from 11 Russian cities selected to host the global football event. “I will honestly tell you that Volgograd will never be excluded and this issue is beyond any discussions,” Mutko told journalists on Thursday. “It can be imagined only in a nightmare that city with such cultural and historical heritage would not be involved.” “Some reports say that the city experiences difficulties with the infrastructure,” he said. “But this is the reason to host the World Cup in order to render support to the regions and boost their development.” The minister reiterated that Russia’s initial plan to hold the 2018 World Cup on 12 different stadiums in 11 various cities across Russia remained unchanged despite earlier proposals by Sepp Blatter, the president of the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA), to reduce the number of stadiums to 10. “Citing the experience of the recent World Cup in Brazil, Blatter turned our attention to the fact that theoretically we can hold the tournament on 10 stadiums,” Mutko said. “However, there were no official decisions made as of yet.” The sports official said that all 11 cities are preparing for the next football competition in line with their schedules. Shortly before Brazil’s fabulous city of Rio de Janeiro dropped the curtains on the 2014 World Cup with the final Germany-Argentina clash on July 13, the baton of the global football tournament’s hosting nations was passed on to Russia. The symbolic hand-over ceremony of the right to host the World Cup tournament was held at the iconic over 74,700-seat capacity Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro and was attended by Blatter, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Blatter said earlier that he intended to pay a visit to Russia in September to monitor the preparation work for the championship in 2018. Russia won the bid to host the 2018 World Cup over three years ago in a tight race against the joint bid from England, Portugal and Spain and the joint bid on behalf of Belgium and the Netherlands. Following an official ceremony held in September 2012 and attended by Blatter, Russia eventually selected 11 out of the earlier proposed 13 cities, excluding Krasnodar and Yaroslavl. The final list of the 2018 World Cup host cities includes Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara. Learn more on itar-tass.com

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