UEFA President sees no reason to strip Russia of World Cup 2018

President of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Aleksander Ceferin stated that there were no reasons to deprive Russia of the right to host the World Cup 2018.

"I don't see any rational or legal reason to take the FIFA 2018 World Cup away from Russia. I am sure that the Russian Football Union and Local Organizing Committee will do a great job and that we will have a very successful World Cup in 2018. I am not worried at all," Ceferin said.

Western media have been talking around the question of possible relocation of the 2018 world football championship since the time, when Russia received the right to host the tournament. Doping scandals in Russian sports have added more fuel to the fire recently, TASS reports.

Earlier, US media urged FIFA to deprive Moscow the right to host the 2018 World Cup. An article in The USA Today said that the doping scandal was not enough. A move to strip Moscow of the right to host the 2018 World Cup would cause Russia a very painful blow, the article also said.

Meanwhile, UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin stated that the analysis of samples taken at UEFA competitions did not reveal any specific problems with doping in Russia. He stressed that his first decision as president was the introduction of a new sample storage protocol. The UEFA will store all samples during ten years in the case additional tests are required.

The 2018 FIFA World Cup will be held from June 14 to July 15, 2018. Matches of the world football championship will take place at 12 stadiums in 11 cities of Russia: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Yekaterinburg, Samara, Sochi and Rostov-on-Don.

Pravda.Ru

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