March 27 – With Russia having completed its final planning for 2018 World Cup stadium build and construction underway, the current focus is now switching towards budgets and planning for infrastructure around the championships.
The latest to announce its hosting plans is Yekaterinburg which has increased the capacity of its fan zone six-fold from 5-6,000 to 35,000.
The fan zone will be located in Central Park and will have a 60sq m big screen showing matches as its focus.
Yekaterinburg is spending Rubles 35 billion ($613 million) preparing for 2018 which the local government will is promoting as a festival for local residents as well as visitors, encouraging people to go out to museums, clubs, theatres, fashion galleries and restaurants.
To finance this, 62% is coming from the regional budget, 25% from ‘extra-budget sources’, 12% from the federal budget and 2% from the local budget.
Four sport complexes are being reconstructed for the tournament, and will be training bases for teams. The road network is under reconstruction, health facilities are being revamped and new hotel accommodation built.
Twitter naming
Meanwhile, the governor of the Rostov Region Vasiliy Golubev has taken to Twitter calling the residents to offer suggestions for the name of the new stadium in Rostov on Don. He has proposed several options including the Rostov Arena, Don Arena, Rostov Don Arena, and Cossack Ataman Arena.
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