Football: Russia unveils host cities

MOSCOW: Russia and Fifa unveiled the 11 cities from the Baltic to the Urals that will host the 2018 World Cup in the most ambitious project the country has organised since the fall of the USSR. The World Cup will be played in Moscow, former imperial capital Saint Petersburg, 2014 Winter Olympics host Sochi, Kazan on the Volga, Yekaterinburg in the Urals and six other cities largely unknown to foreigners. Unlike the Winter Olympics, the World Cup will require the government to spend billions of dollars developing sports, tourist and transport infrastructure in hitherto under-developed areas across the country. “I am convinced that it will be a great success,” said Fifa chief Sepp Blatter. “Not only all of you [the people)], but the president, the government, the parliament and the footballers are behind it.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 1^st, 2012.