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2018 FIFA WORLD CUP IN RUSSIA

Russia spent some $10.6 billion to organize 2018 FIFA World Cup

The larger part of this sum was allocated from the federal budget, the Local Organizing Committee Russia-2018 announced

© Mikhail Japaridze/TASS

MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/. Russia spent about 700 billion rubles ($10.6 billion) to organize the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Arkady Dvorkovich, the chairman of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) Russia-2018, said on Wednesday.

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The Monitoring Council of the Russia-2018 LOC gathered for its last session in Moscow on Wednesday.

"A sum of about 700 billion rubles was spent on the organization of the world championship," Dvorkovich told journalists after the session. "The larger part of this sum was allocated from the federal budget."

Last summer Russia hosted its first-ever FIFA World Cup, which kicked off in Moscow with a remarkable opening show at Luzhniki Stadium on the evening of June 14 and ended with a spectacular final match, played also at the Luzhniki Stadium, where France confidently defeated Croatia 4-2 to win the much-coveted World Cup Trophy.

Russia selected 11 host cities as the venues for the matches of the 2018 World Cup and they were Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara.

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Russia supports Infantino’s nomination for FIFA president

FIFA President Infantino said after the world championship that Russia staged "the best World Cup ever." According to the Russian Federal Agency for Tourism, some 2.9 million foreign visitors arrived in Russia last summer for the FIFA World Cup.

In late December, FIFA announced in its statement that the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia set a new record of audience in the history of world football championships as over half of the world’s population watched matches on TV at home, out of home or on digital platforms.

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2018 World Cup in Russia

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