By Paul Nicholson in Moscow
June 10 – Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko (pictured) has reiterated that Russia’s bid for 2018 was a clean bid and that there was no corruption. Mutko spoke after a series of meetings between the Russia 2018 Local Organising Committee and a FIFA delegation in the Oblast Government House in Samara.
FIFA general secretary Jerome Valcke also reiterated that FIFA’s ethics procedure had already investigated the bidding for 2018 and 2022 and found that there had been no corruption. FIFA did refer the investigatory report to Swiss authorities regarding matters that could be deemed to have broken Swiss law and a further investigation is on-going.
Meanwhile, the primary business of the meetings in Samara was to go over preparations for the 2018 competition and the first major event in 45 days, the Preliminary Draw at the Konstantinovsky Palace in St. Petersburg.
The draw will allocate the qualification groups in five confederations. Only the Asian region – where the qualifiers are already in progress – will not be drawn in St. Petersburg.
Mutko, who is chairman of the Local Organising Committee, said: “Here, in Samara, we made certain again that Russia is ready to present the wonderful gift to the rest of the World – 2018 FIFA World Cup. So as St. Petersburg, one of the beautiful cities of Russia, is ready to host the first official event of 2018 FIFA World Cup, the Preliminary Draw. We as a host country continue to fulfil our obligations to prepare all the events and projects of 2018 FIFA World Cup in time, we are well on track and on schedule. There’s no doubt all the events of 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia will go through at top level”
On the agenda was the approval of the 2018 Sustainability Strategy which sets out the main goals and principles for the sustainable management and operations of the FIFA World Cup. The strategy, which has taken 18 months to prepare, will be publicly launched two days before the Preliminary Draw on July 23 in St. Petersburg.
“Samara and the Volga region will be a great venue for football fans in 2018. Overall the preparations for the FIFA Confederations Cup and the FIFA World Cup as well as our first major event, the Preliminary Draw, are well underway and on schedule. It was important today that we approved the 2018 Sustainability Strategy to provide a framework to ensure sustainable operations pre-, during and after the FIFA World Cup,” said Valcke.
Contact the writer of this story at moc.l1731832058labto1731832058ofdlr1731832058owedi1731832058sni@n1731832058osloh1731832058cin.l1731832058uap1731832058