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Appointment of 2018 World Football Cup cities to speed up preparations – RF sports minister

He also said Russia’s hosting the World Football Cup “is a great honor and a big challenge for us”

MOSCOW, September 30 (Itar-Tass) — Now that cities that will host the FIFA World Football Cup in 2018 are chosen, Russia will speed up preparations to this sporting event, Russian Minister of Sports and chairman of the Russia 2018 steering committee Vitaly Mutko told a briefing on Sunday.

The final list of host cities for 2018 World Football Cup includes Moscow, St. Petersburg Yekaterinburg, Sochi, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Rostov-on-Dom, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, and Saransk.

“It is an event of paramount importance for us,” Mutko said. “I would like to thank FIFA, the international federation of football organizations, for their special concession to us when they sped up the city selection process. It will give us a chance to accelerate preparations for the world chairmanship. It was preceded by tremendous work, inspection trips. I would like to thank all regions that took part in bidding.”

He also said Russia’s hosting the World Football Cup “is a great honor and a big challenge for us.” “We would like to make the championship a memorable event, we want it to have a big legacy. A special law on the preparation for the World Football Cup will be passed before the yearend. It will bind to implement all government guarantees. Next week, we will take a first decision and will name four stadiums out of seven to allocate funds for design works,” he said.

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