February 27 – A further 67.4 billion rubles ($2.2 billion) has been earmarked by the Russians in the new sports budget to spend on the infrastructure and preparations for hosting the FIFA Confederations Cup 2017 and the FIFA World Cup 2018.
Russia’s Sports Minister Vitalij Mutko (pictured) announced that the aggregated expenses of the budget for the development of the sports industry amounts to RUB 1.6 trillion ($52.2 billion) for the eight year 2013-2020 period.
“The aggregated expenses for both federal and regional budgets are planned to be around 1 trillion 609 billion rubles, including 275 billion rubles that are expected to be spent from the federal budget,” said Mutko.
The announcement of future spending comes as part of the Russian Federation’s state programme ‘The Development of the Physical Culture and Sports’ 2013-2020.
The Russians may have plenty of money to develop the sport, but Mutko is not naive to the challenges facing the Russian game prior to the FIFA events.
Speaking to Sovetskij Sport, Mutko said: “Russian football has two troubles – fans and match fixing.
“Fans are behaving provocatively, committing racist actions and because of that many conflicts are arising.”
Mutko said that there was a central plan to bring Russian fan behavior under control. “We are going to do it like in England: ban [badly behaved fans and troublemakers from] match attendance and bring in laws, regulating fans’ behaviour in the stands.”
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