Russia's 2018 World Cup budget cut by 10 percent, says minister

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's budget for staging the 2018 World Cup has been cut by 10 percent, the country's sports minister Vitaly Mutko said on Thursday.

Russia's 2018 World Cup budget cut by 10 percent, says minister

(Reuters)





“In terms of how much money we have, just like all departments, our programmes will face a 10 percent cut,” the minister was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

The cuts, however, will not impact the building of infrastructure for the tournament.

“All the investment needed for the infrastructure remains the same. All the resources, which we planned to spend on the stadiums, infrastructure, temporary structures will not change,” he added.

“Of course there are radical plans but there is no talk of cutting the number of stadiums.

“We have been given the licence to build two stadiums with a capacity of 35,000 and FIFA will not give us any more leeway. All the stadiums (usually) have to have a capacity of 45,000."

Mutko said that the budget cuts will affect things such as bonuses, subsidies for the organising committee, the preparations for the draw ceremony and other expenses.

The Sports Ministry said in March 2014 that hosting the World Cup would cost 620.5 billion roubles (which at the time was worth $18.16 billion but is now worth $8.97 billion).

Of that amount, 172.6 billion roubles was being spent on building and upgrading sports facilities and the rest was allocated for infrastructure development.

Russia will host the World Cup in 12 stadiums in 11 cities, with games being played at two stadiums in Moscow.









(Reporting By Dmitriy Rogovitskiy, editing by Pritha Sarkar)


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