World Cup 2018 in Russia to be most expensive in history

The Ministry for Sport and Tourism calculated the costs required for the World Cup in Russia in 2018. It appears that Russia will spend on the event more than any other countries ever did before. The total costs were evaluated at 632.373 billion rubles (more than $22 billion), officials of the ministry said. Russia received the right to hold World Cup 2018 on December 2010.

Most of the funds will be invested in the infrastructure, which does not relate to football directly. It particularly goes about the construction and reconstruction of roads, the Izvestia newspaper wrote.

Over 241 billion rubles are to be invested in the road building, which makes it the largest article of spending in the budget for the event. More than 60 billion rubles of the amount will be taken for the purpose from the federal budget (81.9 billion - from regional budgets and 92.9 - from non-budgetary sources).

Specialists of the Institute for Economy and Development of Transport calculated that the organization of railway communication, including the construction of high-speed tracks and the acquisition of trains will cost 1 trillion rubles. The head of Russia's railway monopoly Russian Railways named a larger amount - 2.6 trillion.

Russia also promised free railway tickets to the participants and the viewers of the World Cup. These costs were evaluated at 1.4 billion rubles. The visa-free entry to Russia will result in the loss of 1.65 billion rubles. All of such "free gifts" will total 17.618 billion rubles.

The reconstruction of old stadiums and the building of new ones comes next. The costs are expected to hit the level of 123.086 billion rubles. Russia will hold the event on 16 stadiums in 13 cities. FIFA believes that 12 stadiums in 12 cities will be enough.

It particularly goes about Dynamo Stadium in Moscow. Moscow is currently building a new stadium called Spartak. Stadiums are also being built in Sochi (for the Olympics 2014), in Kazan and in St. Petersburg, where Gazprom is in charge of the construction. In addition, Moscow will reconstruct Luzhniki Stadium. New stadiums will appear in Ekaterinburg, Kaliningrad, Nizhni Novgorod, Volgograd, Krasnodar and Rostov on Don.

The federal budget will participate in the funding of ten football stadiums.

The development of means of communication and informational technologies will become the third largest article of spending. Over 75 billion rubles will be spent on the purpose.

Nearly 46 billion rubles will be required for the reconstruction of airports and 43.8 - for the reconstruction of railways.

Vitaly Mutko, the head of the Ministry for Sport and Tourism, believes that the costs of car roads, railways and airports are not supposed to be included in the cost-sheet of the event because the country would have to deal with those problems anyway, without the World Cup.

However, the costs on the preparations to host the championship - 299.39 billion rubles - will be the highest in history. Russia will spend on the World Cup more than South Africa, Germany, Japan and South Korea, where the championship was held before.

The championship cost South Africa $3.5 billion (about 98 billion rubles). The country spent $1.12 billion (30.8 billion) on the construction of stadiums ($1.2 billion - transport, $200 million - on the reconstruction of airports and railways stations).

As for Germany, which hosted the World Cup in 2006, the country spent 6 billion euros on the event, or 258 billion rubles. Transport costs were evaluated at 4 billion euros; the construction of additional stadiums and the construction of new ones cost two billion euros.

Japan and South Korea spent $4.7 billion each to hold the World Cup together.

Anatoly Miranovsky.