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Putin hopes RF national football team to show good results in 2018

Putin promised that “no Russian will be a stranger in this festival of sport,” the FIFA World Cup
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, September 30 (Itar-Tass) — Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes that the national football team will improve the level of its play and show “good results” at the 2018 FIFA World Cup tournament in Russia.

“I am myself looking forward to this festival of sport,” the RF head of state said. He spoke in a television program devoted to the election of the cities that will host matches of the World Cup. Putin hopes that “our players will significantly improve their level and show a good result.”

Putin promised that during the football World Cup in Russia in 2018 the state will subsidise air and rail transportation, so that people could get to the event sites with inexpensive tickets.

“We will be prepared to subsidise transportation for people to get to the competition venues. This includes rail, road, any other means of transport, including aviation,” the head of state said.

Putin promised that “no Russian will be a stranger in this festival of sport,” the FIFA World Cup. The list of candidate cities to host the competition included 13 localities, of which FIFA selected 11.

Meanwhile, Moscow on Saturday was named to host matches of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. Other cities that will host the football championship matches are St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Sochi, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Rostov-on-Don, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Saransk. Yaroslavl and Krasnodar were not included in final list of 11 cities that will host the matches.

The head of state promised that the government “will organise the bases for athletes’ training and rest in the cities selected” to host the World Cup matches.