Russia set to reveal 2018 World Cup host cities
Reuters - Wednesday 05 September 2012, 12:38
The host cities for the 2018
World Cup in Russia will be announced this month, the
tournament's organisers said on Wednesday.
"The Local Organising Committee (LOC) and FIFA will
announce the host cities on September 29 in Moscow," LOC said in a
statement.
Thirteen Russian cities - Moscow, St. Petersburg,
Kaliningrad, Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Samara, Saransk,
Volgograd, Krasnodar, Rostov, Sochi and Yekaterinburg - are
competing for the right to stage the world's biggest event.
LOC head Vitaly Mutko said last year the tournament will be
played in 12 stadiums located in 11 cities.
Moscow will have two venues: the 90,000-seat Luzhniki
stadium, which will stage the final, and another to be chosen
from two 45,000-seat arenas that are being built by the Spartak
and Dynamo clubs.
LOC would not reveal the outsiders but most experts say the
two cities likely to be cut are Saransk, which has the smallest
venue, and Yekaterinburg, located at the foot of the Ural
mountains near the Europe-Asia border, approximately 1,800
kilometres from Moscow.
Russia beat England and joint bids from Spain-Portugal and
Belgium-Netherlands in December 2010 to win the right to stage
the 32-team competition.