Russia 2018 inspections continue in St Petersburg and Kaliningrad

By David Gold

April 30 – FIFA has continued its inspection of potential host cities for the Russia 2018 World Cup with visits to St Petersburg and Kaliningrad.

A delegation was joined by Russia 2018 representatives (pictured above), including chief executive Alexey Sorokin, as world football’s governing body resumed its reconnaissance tour, which began earlier this month in the southern cities of Rostov-on-Don and Krasnodar.

A planned trip to Sochi was, however, postponed due to the poor weather.

The delegation took a look at St Petersburg’s Dvortsovaya Square, a site which can hold 57,000 people and a potential Fan Festival location.

It also visited Krestovsky Island to view construction of the new 69,000-seat stadium (pictured below), the favourite to join Moscow’s Luzhniki arena as a host venue for the semi-finals.

The stadium on Krestovsky Island will boast a retractable roof and a removable pitch, and serve as the new home to the reigning Russian champions, Zenit St Petersburg.

Architect Dmitry Bush said although he is still awaiting approval for the design of the roof, the inaugural game at the venue will be staged in 2015.

Jürgen Müller, FIFA head of the 2014, 2018 and 2022 World Cups, commented: “The discussion we had at Saint Petersburg’s Committee for Physical Education and Sport was very fruitful.

“We discussed some of the aspects to do with preparation of the infrastructure needed to host the World Cup.

“At this stage we’re just gathering information from the Candidate Cities, and we’re pleased with the responses we received to the questions we asked.”

St Petersburg is expected to host, in 2015, the preliminary draw for the World Cup.

Following the trip to St Petersburg, the delegation travelled east to Kaliningrad, which is physically separated from Russia, and situated between Lithuania and Poland.

The next leg of the trip will take FIFA and Russia 2018 delegates to Moscow, where both the Dynamo and Spartak clubs – also building new stadiums – are vying to join the Luzhniki in winning the right to host matches.

Thereafter, the delegation will move to Yaroslavl and Yekaterinburg in the east, on the border between Asia and Europe.

FIFA plans to make a final decision on the 11 host cities in September.

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