Vitaly Mutko: "We have to learn how to present football well"

By Vestnik Kavkaza

In 2018 Russia will host the most important sporting event - the FIFA World Cup. Sports officials hope that the experience of hosting the Olympic Games in Sochi next year will help them in the conduct of the 2018 World Cup. But we should not forget that football is a special world, which includes not only a sporting competition, but also the fan movement, with which in our country there are some problems. The Russian Federation in five years should not only build a decent sports infrastructure but also solve a lot of football issues.

The Ministry of Sports is the main organizer and executor of the program for the World Cup. According to the Minister of Sports of Russia Vitaly Mutko, an extra 11 sub-programs will be performed by the federal government. "Transport issues will be resolved by the Ministry of Transport, energy issues – by the Department of Energy, health care organizations will implement their program, Rosturizm will be involved in issues of accommodation. Each agency will be engaged in its sub-program. Ministry of Sports will coordinate and monitor the situation of the entire program. We will have a monitoring center that will monitor literally every object”, Vitaly Mutko said. He also said that the federal program includes 271 investment projects and activities.

The minister promised that citizens will be able to monitor the construction of arenas online with video cameras installed in the units, which will broadcast in real time. Five stadiums, including in Sochi, Kazan and St. Petersburg, are already under construction, some have yet to be designed. "Five stadiums that are being built are entirely in the schedule now. Basically, we have no doubt that they will be completed in time. The next problem is the design of the remaining seven stadiums and the construction of seven stadiums or their reconstruction”, the Minister of Sport said.

Recently at a press conference in Moscow architectural and planning solutions for stadiums in Volgograd, Yekaterinburg, Kaliningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Saransk were presented; the first stage of the design was completed in May. And the fate of the "Luzhniki" Moscow stadium is not defined yet. "There are three variants concerning the "Luzhniki” stadium: complete demolition, deep renovation and partial reconstruction of the stadium", Vitaly Mutko said. Of course, it is the prerogative of the regions and regional governments to determine the fate of stadiums with their public and urban planning systems. Many regions have already adopted their projects".

In addition, the Minister noted that it is necessary to raise public interest in football in general: "The interest in football and games attendance drops. It means that we still have to learn how to sell our product - football. This is a great game, and we have to make it beautiful, learn to present it well, but this needs the creation of quite different conditions. "