Russia to reveal World Cup host cities on TV
Reuters - Friday 21 September 2012, 11:03
The host cities for the 2018 FIFA World Cup will be announced live on Russian television on September 29, local organisers of the tournament said on Friday.
Channel One will broadcast the presentation on its "Tonight" show at 21:20 local time, they said.
"FIFA President Sepp Blatter and Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko will open the ceremony," the Local Organising Committee (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 matches.
Mutko, also the LOC head, said earlier this month that two cities would be dropped and Saransk, Volgograd, Yaroslavl, Kaliningrad and Rostov are the most under threat.
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.
Russia beat England and joint bids from Spain-Portugal and Belgium-Netherlands in December 2010 to win the right to stage the tournament.