Russia won right to host 2018 FIFA World Cup without conspiracies - sports minister

MOSCOW, October 30. /TASS/. Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko reiterated on Friday that Russia never entered any sort of conspiracies to win the right of hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup. "There were no conspiracies whatsoever," Mutko told journalists. "We [Russia] stopped at nothing. We were with the idea. There were no fix-ups for obtaining the 2018 World Cup. Russia did not enter conspiracies and deserved the right to host the world championship." Russia won the bid to host the 2018 World Cup over four 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. Russia selected 11 host cities to be the venues for the matches of the 2018 World Cup and they are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara. The matches of the 2018 World Cup will be held between June 14 and July 15 at 12 stadiums located in the 11 mentioned above cities across Russia. Two of the stadiums are located in the Russian capital. Last month a total of 33 cities across Russia involving over 450,000 people were celebrating the 1,000-day countdown to the 2018 World Cup. Main celebrations of Russia’s countdown to the FIFA World Cup, which was inaugurated almost a century ago and takes place once in four years, were held in the Russian capital of Moscow. This summer Russia’s second largest city of St. Petersburg was the venue for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Preliminary Draw, which is the first major kick-off event ahead of the global tournament itself. A total of 208 nations participated in the event on July 25 and it was for the first time in the history of World Cups, when all national teams registered for the Preliminary Draw. Read more