By Andrew Warshaw
August 18 – The head of Russia’s 2018 World Cup organising committee has broken his silence over calls in some quarters for the country to be stripped of host status as a result of the widely condemned military and political intervention in Ukraine.
Until now, Alexey Sorokin, the multi-lingual public face of Russia’s 2018 bid who was one of the most familiar figures throughout the entire bid process, has kept his counsel amid global criticism of Russia’s support for separatists in eastern Ukraine and allegations of Russian involvement in the shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines plane that killed all 298 passengers and crew aboard.
Former US presidential candidate John McCain recently added his voice to calls for Russia to be stripped of the World Cup while UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg said it would be “unthinkable” to allow Russia to host the finals in 2018 unless there is a radical change of policy in the region though FIFA have made it clear in a lengthy statement that moving the tournament for political reasons is a non-starter.
Ever since winning the bid in December 2010, Russia has striven to put its best face forward, suffering only a modicum of adverse international publicity compared to, say, 2022 hosts Qatar. Recent developments in Ukraine changed all that in terms of the public relations machine but Sorokin says calls for a boycott have done little to affect morale among World Cup organisers or deflect attention away from the job at hand.
Speaking ahead of the symbolic opening of the newly completed 45,000-seater Kazan Arena which held its inaugural match on Sunday between Rubin Kazan and Lokomotiv Moscow, Sorokin said Russia felt no threat to its World Cup preparations as a result of the ongoing unrest in eastern Ukraine.
“These appeals to FIFA are private opinions by politicians and others,” Sorokin, CEO of the 2118 organising committee, told INSIDEworldfootball. “Everyone is entitled to their opinion about where this World Cup should take place. Maybe (they think it should be) back in their homeland, maybe somewhere else. If we pay too much attention to this, it’s going to be hard to organise. The focus that remained with us for the last three and half years will remain for the next four.
“We feel we should be maintaining a principle that was declared many years ago – which is that football should be beyond politics.”
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