By David Gold
September 12 – Vitaly Mutko, the Russian Sports Minister who chairs the Organising Committee for the 2018 World Cup, has revaled that the country is likely to use 13 stadiums rather than the originally planned 16.
FIFA tends to believe 12 stadiums to be ideal when organising a World Cup, and Mutko suggested that he agreed with that logic.
“Twelve is a more practical number because the more cities you have, the bigger the cost is of staging the tournament,” he said.
“We haven’t made the final decision and in theory all 16 [original] venues still have a chance to be selected.
“But in the end we would have no more than 13 stadiums.”
The FIFA Executive Committee member also said that the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow would be hosting the final and semi-final of the competition.
He then indicated that only one other stadium in Moscow would be used for the tournament, with the other semi final taking place in St Petersburg at the home of current Russian Premier League champions Zenit.
Jerome Valcke, FIFA General Secretary, also had words of praise for one of the city’s which could host games in 2018, Saransk.
Following a visit, he told Reuters that “it’s a nice city…it could host some of the group matches.”
FIFA is due to make a final decision on the number of venues for the 2018 tournament in March 2013.
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