June 8 – With the World Cup on the doorstep, Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged the eleven host cities to take advantage on the tournament and deliver a strong footballing legacy after the finals.
On Thursday Putin held his annual call-in TV show, a marathon Q&A session with the Russian public, and the forthcoming World Cup was one of the agenda points. Putin addressed some of the tournament’s organisational issues. Russia will stage the global tournament from June 14 to July 15 in 11 host cities and 12 stadiums at a cost of $11 billion.
Putin declared it was “inadmissible to turn these sports facilities into some sort of marketplaces, which we saw emerge at sports facilities in Moscow in the 1990s”. The Russian government is believed to have a fund in the range of $3.2 million to $6.4 million to maintain the venues after the World Cup, but Putin stresses that “all the facilities need to be able to cover their costs.”
At recent tournaments white elephant stadiums have become a highly controversial legacy. In South Africa, Cape Town’s Green Point stadium has struggled to be sustainable. In Brazil, the national stadium in the capital has little use. The same goes for the Arena Pantanal in Cuiabá and Arena da Amazonia in Manaus.
Putin is keen on avoiding a similar scenario in Russia. He has proposed that stadiums become multipurpose entertainment destinations, with restaurants, cafes and shopping malls to increase revenues, once the World Cup is over.
“Unlike many countries, we have managed to solve this task,” said Putin referring to the Sochi Winter Olympic Games. “Both Sochi clusters are actively used, which is a clear success.”
That assertion is debatable. The Fisht Olympic Stadium has been expanded to host World Cup matches, but has barely been used after the Winter Olympic Games. Dinamo St Peterburg will move in after the tournament, but have little or no following.
“We must keep holding there [the stadiums] interesting matches, which would lead to the necessity of forming new, strong teams,” said the Russian head of state, as reported by TASS. “On top of everything, we need to see a new generation of footballers and athletes grown on our home-soil training infrastructure.”
Putin expressed his hopes that the hosts will perform well at the World Cup, but recent friendlies don’t bode well. The Russian national team lost away to Austria and then drew with Turkey. On Saturday Russia will play their last warm-up game against the Czech Republic before the World Cup curtain raiser against Saudi Arabia on Thursday, June 14.
The hosts are the lowest ranked side of all 32 teams at the tournament, in 70th place. They have also been paired alongside Uruguay and Egypt in Group A. At least year’s Confederations Cup Russia failed to progress from the first round.
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