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FIFA president Sepp Blatter
FIFA on Saturday announced its choices of 11 Russian cities to host the soccer World Cup in 2018, sidelining bids from Yaroslavl and Krasnodar.
Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Sochi, Yekaterinburg, Samara, Saransk, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Volgograd and Kaliningrad will stage the tournament.
Matches in Moscow will take place at two stadiums.
The announcements came as part of a ceremony at a Channel One studio, attended by FIFA president Sepp Blatter and Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko. The channel broadcast the event live, offering video linkups with each of the winning cities, except Moscow.
The decision means that the chosen cities will have to provide top-quality stadiums, hotels and transportation services, which will drive billions of dollars of investment.
?It's the first time the World Cup is to take place in Eastern Europe,? Blatter said in opening remarks.
FIFA secretary-general Jerome Valcke said the size of the city was not a criterion for selection but that the legacy the tournament would leave was considered important.
This past summer, Yaroslavl became the largest city where an opposition candidate won mayoral elections ? a slap in the face for the ruling United Russia party, which normally tightly controls the political scene in the country.
Blatter opened the envelopes with the names of the first two winning cities. As St. Petersburg was announced cameras showed fireworks immediately shooting into the night sky. Yekaterinburg was second.
The show's host, Andrei Malakhov, then paused the announcements to show footage of his meeting with ?the man who made all this possible,? President Vladimir Putin, which took place at Putin's suburban residence of Novo-Ogaryovo at 7 p.m. that day.
Putin sounded casual when he greeted Malakhov, saying, ?You are here about soccer.?
The president said the championship would be a good reason for the country's youth to take an interest in sports and would help pull some of them away from alcohol and cigarettes.
He also said the preparations would give a powerful impetus to the economy and create new jobs.
Putin said Russia insisted on having 11 host cities but that the final decision rested with FIFA. Contrary to news reports that said Putin would have the final say over which cities were selected, Putin said he was unaware of the choices.
The government will aim to place some auxiliary sports facilities, such as training bases, in the cities that FIFA excluded, he said. The government will also subsidize fares for residents of those cities to travel to matches, he said.
FIFA secretary-general Jerome Valcke and Alexei Sorokin, chief of the local organizing committee, came on stage next to announce the cities of Sochi and Kazan.
Brazilian player Roberto Carlos was the next to open envelopes. Two twin brothers, who acted in Russia's promotional film for the World Cup bid, stood by to pull out the paper strips with city names: Nizhny Novgorod, Samara and Rostov-on-Don.
The Russian national soccer team's new coach Fabio Capello and the two boys next announced Kaliningrad, Volgograd and Saransk ? the smallest of all the host cities, with a population of 300,000.
Fielding a question, Mutko unveiled, perhaps inadvertently, that the remaining winning city was Moscow.
Nevertheless, Blatter returned to the stage, accompanied by Mutko, to open an envelope with Moscow's name inside.
Governors of most regions were present for the video linkups with Channel One, except for the governors of St. Petersburg and Krasnodar, the region that includes Sochi.
Russia beat England and joint bids from Spain-Portugal and Belgium-Netherlands in December 2010 for the right to hold the tournament.
Source: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/468978.html
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