MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/. The organizers of the BRICS Games plan to invite more than 70 countries to the competitions, Tatarstan's Sports Minister Vladimir Leonov told TASS.

"The competition program has been preliminarily formed. There will be about 25-26 kinds of sports. We have begun the paperwork on creating the organizing committee, and we know roughly how many countries can already be invited," Leonov said.

"It is clear that these are the BRICS countries plus those who will join [the association] on January 1, and we want to invite about 60 more countries. That is, 70-72 countries will definitely be invited, and after that, we will work out who else we can bring over on an individual basis," he added.

In mid-May, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the government to submit proposals for organizing and holding the 2024 BRICS Games in Russia. The event is scheduled to take place in Kazan from June 12 to June 23. Russian Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin emphasized that the BRICS Games are not meant to rival any other competitions and will not violate the international sports calendar.

This year's BRICS summit chaired by South Africa was held on August 22-24 in Johannesburg. The participants of the summit agreed that Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE will join the group as of January 1, 2024.