Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has supported Russia's bid to host the World Football Championship in 2018. Government officials have yet to estimate what the event would cost. Experts are sure it will cost more than the Sochi Olympics.
On March 13 the Russian Football Union (RFU) filed an application with FIFA to host the World Championship in 2018 or 2022. Mr Putin supported the application yesterday: "Please prepare an application to host the 2018 World Football Championship in Russia," the Prime Minister ordered Vitaly Mutko, the Minister of Sport and President of the RFU.
The deadline for filing applications to host world championships in 2018 and 2022 was the middle of March. Russia will compete against 10 contenders: Australia, Britain, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Qatar, South Korea, the US, Belgium-the Netherlands and Spain-Portugal (the last two are joint applications), a FIFA spokesman said. Qatar and South Korea are bidding only for the 2022 championship while all the rest for both tournaments. FIFA is not to announce the winners until December 2010.
The favourites in the race are Britain and Spain/Portugal, says Vyacheslav Koloskov, Honorary President of the RFU and member of the FIFA Executive Committee. They are ready to host the championship at a moment's notice. To beat them Russia must entrust the preparation to a team as strong and provide government guarantees at a level as high as when it bid for the Winter Olympics of 2014. In 2010 it will have to show FIFA something more than just models of the facilities or sporting and infrastructure projects in the works and allocated land sites and funding guarantees, says Mr Koloskov. At the request of FIFA the country hosting the championship, in which 32 teams will compete, must have about 12 stadiums seating at least 40,000 each for group matches. The opening and final matches should be held at a stadium seating at least 80,000. "Top quality of television broadcasting, information and telecommunications technologies, transport and hotel accommodation" are among necessary conditions.
During his conversation with the Prime Minister, Mr Mutko proposed to host matches in Sochi, Krasnodar, Rostov, Moscow and the Moscow Region, St Petersburg, Yaroslavl, Kazan, Samara, Volgograd, Saransk or Yekaterinburg.
Russia will have to do many things from scratch, Mr Koloskov notes. "So far it is only a political decision, the cost of the project has not been estimated", a Government official admits. But he is sure that it will cost much less than the Olympics. The Olympic construction is currently estimated at 206 billion roubles, of which 118 billion is federal budget spending. True, the official says that at least half of the cost of building the stadiums should be funded by the titular sponsors of clubs.
The total cost of preparing for the championship may run to $8 billion, thinks Mr Koloskov. Building a stadium that meets FIFA standards costs 300 million. The director of the Regional Politics Institute, Bulat Stolyarov, speaks about 10-15 billion. True, as in the case of the Sochi Olympics, the Government may approve two scenarios of preparation, says Mr Stolyarov: the maximum one which will be implemented if Russia's bid wins and the minimum one that will have to be implemented in any case.
The budget cannot afford to finance such an ambitious project today, a Finance Ministry official says categorically. However, he notes that construction will not start before 2012 by which time the situation may change for the better.
In 2012 Russia will no longer have the safety cushion of the Reserve Fund, Igor Nikolayev, a partner with FBK, warns. He says it is dangerous to embark on such an ambitious project without estimating its cost.
If the infrastructure is in place hosting a world championship does not cost too much. Thus, Germany in 2006 spent $400 million to prepare the tournament and earned $156 million in profits. South Africa will spend $560 million to prepare the 2010 World Championship.
In addition, preparation for the final tournament gives a boost to the economy. Experts of the Dutch bank ABN Amro in a review titled Soccernomics published during the last world championship claimed that the holding of the tournament increases the host country's GDP by between 0.02% and 0.1% (mainly due to tourism and services) if one does not count the growth of internal consumption and investments. The German Institute of Market Studies has calculated that the monthly income of an average German during the final stage of the 2006 World Championship increased by 23.5%, or 469 euros.
It is with an eye to the championship that the Dynamo football club increased the capacity of the new stadium under construction from 32,000 to 40,000, says the club's director-general Dmitry Ivanov. Construction of the stadium is to start in 2010 so that there will be something to show the FIFA Executive Committee. Mr Ivanov has no doubt that Russia has everything it needs to prepare for the championship: projects of the construction of half of the stadiums required by FIFA are about to be launched.
By Yelena Ivanitskaya, Nadezhda Overchenko