By Paul Nicholson
June 30 – With build projects for the final two stadia in Yekaterinburg and Kaliningrad being approved by Russian central government, the 30 day countdown to the first official event of the 2018 World Cup has begun. The Preliminary Draw will be held in St Petersburg on July 25 with 141 teams in the pots that will be drawn by FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke.
Five of the six confederations will be represented in St Petersburg, the exception being Asia, where qualifying matches are already underway. While CONCACAF has also started the first round of qualifiers, the groups for the subsequent stages will be drawn.
CEO of the Russia 2018 Local Organising Committee, Alexey Sorokin, said: “The ceremony, which has been prepared in conjunction with creative teams from Russia’s Channel One, provides an opportunity to showcase all of our country’s cultural riches and traditions, as well as simultaneously setting the tone for the upcoming celebration of football that awaits us all in 2017 with the FIFA Confederations Cup, and 2018 with the FIFA World Cup.”
The draw will be broadcast by more than 100 FIFA media partners worldwide.
The draw week will also unveil the presentation of the 2018 World Cup Sustainability Strategy on 23 July as well as releasing of the match schedules for the Confederations Cup in 2017 and the 2018 World Cup on 24 July.
Stadium starts
Meanwhile the project plan for the reconstruction of the ‘Centralnyi’ stadium in Yekaterinburg has been approved by Russia’s central government overseers.
The stadium will be a mix of old and new with the historic walls of the arena being preserved and a new complex being built within the walls containing a 35,000 seat stadium.
The construction of the stadium in Kaliningrad is now scheduled to begin in the second half of August, with central government planning approval is expected to be received in July.
By mid-August, the land on Oktiabrskiy island should have an access road completed as well as having begun the main groundwork engineering before the actual construction of the sports complex can begin. The general contractor is the Crocus Group which is expected to submit the final construction plan by the end of July to central government.
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