By Vestnik Kavkaza
On June 20, 2013, the prime minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev signed the Act on the Program of Preparing for Holding the World Cup in the RF in 2018. It contains major events and their predicted cost for the federal budget, regional budgets, and investors. The program requires 664.1 billion rubles, 336.2 billion will be allocated from the budget, 101.6 from regional budgets, 226.3 from investors.
“The act requires that the Ministry of Sport is a responsible executor and coordinator of the program. The sums which will be allocated to the program have been defined. The Ministry of Regional Development which I represent here is responsible for construction and reconstruction of networks, supplying infrastructures for sporting facilities,” Nurali Rezvanov, the head of the Department of Investment Projects, Target and Special Programs of Development of the Russian Federation Regions under the Ministry of Regional Development of the RF, says. “We have 664 billion for all the arrangements; 336 billion will be allocated from the federal budget; 226 from investors, i.e. non-budget sources which we can use. There is one more moment. Construction and reconstruction of facilities will take 174 billion. The rest is development of transport, communicational infrastructures, networks, information technologies and healthcare development. It will be done for people who live in these regions. Some people ask: can a stadium pay off? What will they bring in the future? Colleagues, you know that theatres, museums, sporting facilities should be built. A human being cannot live without them in the world. Obviously they cannot provide the expected effect from the very beginning. You cannot ask how much the Bolshoi Theatre or the Pushkin Museum will pay off. The same thing goes for a stadium. Look at the capital of Tatarstan – Kazan. They will go forward, when the Universiade ends. After the Universiade there will be the water sports world championship. Then, the World Cup will take place. So the sporting facilities will be useful. I hope other facilities which will be constructed in other cities will be demanded as well. The other example is Sochi. The Winter Olympic Games will end, and the World Cup will be next. Thus, we cannot say they have been constructed for one event only. The facilities will play a big role in the development of the regions.”
Meanwhile, according to Vladimir Klimanov, head of the Institute of Public Finance Reform, “a big share of the declared sum, 664 billion rubles, is allocated to construction of transport infrastructure facilities. A significant share of non-budgetary resources will be spent on construction of hotels, rather than sporting facilities which can concern the population, from the point of view of “what we are going to do with them; do we need such big stadiums in all the cities which will host the World Cup?”
In fact, a significant part of the facilities is targeted at further existence in our country. From this point of view, it is wonderful that such major events as the Winter Olympics, the Student Games in Kazan and the World Cup will improve the urban environment in the cities which will host them and infrastructure, because we cannot deny that it is one of two constant diseases of our country. Visible economic effects are secondary. Social effects are primary, which are always visible and significant during construction of infrastructure. On the other hand, it is about promotion of our country’s image, its business image, and it will have positive effects for our country in the future.”
