FIFA inspection team visit Kazan and Sochi on Russia 2018 World Cup tour

By Duncan Mackay
British Sports Internet Writer of the Year

August 18 – Kazan and Sochi were the latest stops visited today by the FIFA inspection team as they continued to assess Russia’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup.

The President of the Republic of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, personally welcomed the FIFA team at the airport when they arrived in Kazan and accompanied the FIFA experts throughout their visit, which also included a meeting at Kazan Kremlin.

During the visit to Kazan, the home to Russian League champions Rubin, Minnikhanov showed the team the city’s Olympic Training Centre and they were also guests of honour at an inauguration ceremony for three new football training centres that are part of the comprehensive range of football development activities in Tatarstan.

FIFA delegation head Harold Mayne-Nicholls, the President of the Chilean Football Association, was asked to perform a symbolic kick-off as part of the ceremony attended by more than 2,000 spectators and which involved several hundred girls and boys displaying their dancing and football skills.

Earlier that day, the FIFA inspectors had flown from Moscow to the Tatar capital, which is located in the Volga River Basin and has a population of 1.1 million.

Following a presentation of the upgrade project for Kazan International Airport, the group visited the site of the new stadium that will be the central facility of the 2013 Universiade Games and the future home ground of Rubin Kazan.

The new football-only stadium will be finished in 2013 and have a capacity of 45,105 spectators.

For the World Cup the stadium would be the stage for both group matches and either round of 16 or quarter-final matches.

The FIFA team were also treated to a tour of the Kazan Kremlin, named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000.

They then flew to Sochi, the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, where they were given a presentation by Sergei Fursenko, the President of the Russian Football Union (RFU), on development work in the country and how hosting the World Cup would help accelerate that work.

Alexey Smertin, Russia’s former captain who played for Chelsea is and now ambassador as well as Sporting Director of the Bid Committee, took the youth academy he has set up in his native Altay region in Siberia to demonstrate the power and positive influence football exercises.

A farewell dinner was held for the delegation ahead of their planned return to Moscow tomorrow.

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