By Paul Nicholson
August 27 – Spartak Moscow’s new stadium will be opened today with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev attending the opening ceremony. Putin will tour the stadium and discuss preparations for the 2018 World Cup.
The 42,000-seat Otkrytie Arena (or Spartak Stadium) began construction in October 2010, with the plans revised when Russia won the right to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The stadium, sited on the Tushino Airfield grounds in the far north-west of Moscow, is about 15 kilometres from the city centre. It’s original capacity was designed for 35,000.
Although its primary use will be as a football stadium it has been built for multi-purpose use. As well as being the second venue in Moscow for the 2018 World Cup (it may host the opening game), the stadium will also be used for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup.
The first game in the stadium will be played August 30 between Spartak veterans with a friendly match being played by Spartak’s first team against Serbian Cverna Zvezda Red Star on September 5. The first official match will be played against local rivals Torpedo Moscow on September 13.
Designed by AECOM and Dexter Moren Associates, the stadium has a neighbouring but separate indoor arena. Leonid Fedun, Spartak’s owner, has put up the bulk of the finance to build the stadium through his affiliated companies LUKoil company and IFD Kapital.
As part of the infrastructure surrounding the stadium, a new metro station ‘Spartak’ also opens today, linking the venue to the centre of the city.
While preparations in Moscow for 2018 are advancing, Gennady Timchenko, owner of the construction company building the stadium in Nizhny Novgorod, has said that the cost of the stadium will have to go up by another 2 billion rubles ($55 million).
The stadium is modelled on the template of the just-opened Kazan Arena which cost 15 billion rubles ($415 million) to build. Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko had originally said that planned stadiums in both Nizhny Novgorod and Volgograd should not cost more than the Kazan Arena. But the builders of both the new venues told government that the money allocated was not enough and threatened to withdraw from the projects.
Timchenko threatened to withdraw his Stroitransgaz construction company from the build unless the figure was raised to 17 billion rubles ($471 million), which he said was “the minimum needed to break even.”
It now appears that the Russian state review board has agreed to increase the funding for the 45,000-seat stadium in Nizhny Novgorod.
Meanwhile, FIFA venue inspectors will return to Russia in October to inspect Sochi’s preparations.
The Fisht Stadium was constructed for this year’s Winter Olympic Games in Sochi but needs to be modified for the 2018 World Cup, which includes laying a pitch as well as increasing seating capacity to 45,000.
It is estimated that 4,000 volunteers will be helping during the 2018 World Cup matches in Sochi (a resort town). Rubles 29.4 million ($814,000) has been allocated for the development of the fan zones which will host 30,000 people.
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