MOSCOW: Russia is avoiding Brazil's mistakes. That was the message as Fifa inspectors completed their tour of the arenas Russia is building for the 2018 tourney — no delays here.
While Brazil's tourney transpire for the most part swimmingly, its build-up was dominated by the rush end to structure construction and, even throughout the tournament itself, some stadiums were still unfinished and compelled to deploy temporary seating and facilities.
In Russia, things area unit completely different, same Chris Unger, Fifa's prime official overseeing Russian preparations, on Monday as he visited Moscow's huge Luzhniki structure, which is able to host the ultimate in 2018. “As we tend to detected these days, they appear to be before schedule [at Luzhniki] that is nice for everyone, as a result of the earlier they end, the earlier we will begin testing,” he said.
Earlier on his five-day tour of the stadiums, Unger had same St. Petersburg's new sixty nine,000-seat arena, set to host a 2018 semi, was back on course to open in mid-2016 and host Confederations Cup games a year later.
The arena, planned as a brand new home for Zenit St. Petersburg Campaign years before Russia won the correct to host the globe Cup, is nearly six years behind its original gap date that looked seemingly to slide back to 2017, once it'll hold Confederation Cup games.
Meanwhile, a dispute over whether or not to stay the roof on Sochi's Fisht Olympic structure has been resolved, easing the preparations there. Unger same the inspectors were told the roof would currently be removed to make a additional orthodox tourney structure.
Those reassurances are going to be music to the ears of Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, United Nations agency pledged before parliament in Gregorian calendar month that Russia's eleven host cities would avoid the “Brazilian scenario” - shorthand for delays, confusion and infrastructure chaos.
While Unger centered Monday on Russia's sporting future, around him were markers of the past — on the opposite facet of the stadium's grounds stood Spartak Moscow fans bearing massive sepulchral bouquets, there to mark the thirty second day of remembrance of Russia's worst sporting disaster.
At least sixty six Spartak fans were crushed to death at a 1982 UEFA Cup games, though some unofficial estimates have place the toll as high as 340.
For the Fifa delegation's visit to Luzhniki, that hosted the 1980 athletics, journalists were educated to collect by an outsized, snowy sculpture of Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilich Lenin, once whom the structure was originally named.
Unger refused to the touch on any topics with a political association, repeatedly refusing to touch upon Russia's issues with racism at soccer matches. On Tuesday, Russian champion CSKA Moscow can host Manchester town for a Champions League game in associate empty structure following varied cases of racist behavior by fans.
Unger additionally defended Fifa's call to send inspectors to 3 completed stadiums however to not seven arenas that have barely started construction. Those stadiums, dead Russian provincial cities, can receive “virtual inspections” that Unger insisted would still be rigorous. “It's not one thing that we tend to go away saying: American state, we have seen the plans, currently we're glad,” he said. “It's a method. we tend to come, we tend to see what progress has been created, see if the plans area unit correct, we tend to validate.”
Russian Sports Minister Mutko has raised considerations regarding 2 of the unvisited arenas, in Kaliningrad within the west the southern town of Volgograd, spoken language that prices might rise as a result of engineering challenges on their sites.
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