Russia pulls 10 percent of budget for World Cup prep

Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko has announced that Russia will reduce its spending on preparations to host the 2018 World Cup by 10 percent.

Mutko says the cuts won’t affect the construction of stadiums and other infrastructure. “We’re talking about various organizational issues, subsidies to the organizing committee, and preparation for the final draw ceremony. All our infrastructural investments are secure,” Mutko said.

The cuts in World-Cup spending are part of a new plan adopted by the federal government in late January to address Russia’s financial crisis. In the near future, the government also intends to submit to the Duma legislation that would reduce other kinds of state spending. 

“Generally we’re looking at a 10 percent reduction across the board, in every department, in all programs. In this particular program, for our World-Cup preparations, we’re reducing spending on items that don’t concern infrastructure,” Mutko stated.

The 2018 World Cup will take place from June 14 to July 15 in 11 different Russian cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Rostov, Kaliningrad, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Saransk, and Volgograd.

Russia has not revealed the total cost of its preparations for the soccer tournament, though some isolated costs are known. For instance, Moscow is spending 300 million rubles ($4.3 million) to construct and renovate several stadiums. In January, at a meeting with Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, it was announced that state contracts for the construction of World-Cup sporting arenas might be adjusted for inflation.

According to a British intelligence-gathering operation on the selection of the host for the 2018 World Cup, Russia may have won the bidding contest illegally. For instance, Vladimir Putin is suspected of gifting a painting by Picasso to a member of FIFA's Executive Committee to win his vote.

There is wide speculation about how much Russia spent on its last major sporting event, the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Journalists put the figure anywhere between $23 billion and $51 billion, but there is no consensus about the tournament’s true price tag.