FIFA kicks off Russia 2018 host city tour

By David Gold

April 10 – Russia 2018 has begun a tour with FIFA delegates of potential host cities for the World Cup being staged in the country in six years’ time.

The delegation is in Krasnodar today to inspect facilities and the prospective new 50,000 capacity stadium (model of stadium pictured above) to be built there for use by Russian Premier League team FC Kuban Krasnodar post 2018.

They then travel to Rostov-on-Don, where a 44,000 seater venue is planned, before moving onto Sochi, the host of the 2014 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Sochi is almost certain be a 2018 host city with its Fisht Olympic Stadium (pictured below) – which will host the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Winter Games – close to completion.

Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don and Sochi form the southern cluster of prospective host venues for 2018.

Russia has divided the host cities into four clusters – the southern cluster (as outlined above), the northern cluster consisting of Kaliningrad and St Petersburg, the Moscow cluster consisting of a renovated Luzhniki Stadium and one of the home grounds of either Russian Premier League teams Spartak Moscow or Dynamo Moscow and the Volga River cluster – because of the country’s vast size.

The Volga River cluster, takes in the majority of prospective venues – Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Saransk, Samara and Volgograd.

In addition, there is the stand alone cluster of Yekaterinburg in the east, on the border between Asia and Europe.

Following the first leg of the tour, FIFA delegates will move on to Kaliningrad and St Petersburg, with the delegation touring all venues by June 22.

The 13 candidate cities will be narrowed down to 11 by September, when FIFA will make a final decision on host venues.

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