The infrastructure for the 2018 FIFA World Cup must be ready by April 1, the stadiums for the tournament must be commissioned by March and handed over to the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) Russia-2018 on May 25, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko said.
"On the whole, we have a clear-cut schedule on the completion of works, we must be fully ready with the infrastructure by April 1 and we will be able to hand over everything to the LOC and FIFA by May 31," Mutko, who oversees the issues of sports, tourism and youth affairs in the Russian government, told reporters on Wednesday, reports tass news agency.
"We have enormous operational work ahead of us on the training of the personnel and preparations of bases, which will be accommodating national teams," Mutko said. "By March we need to commission all stadiums and on May 25 they will be transferred under the authority of the Local Organizing Committee."
After successfully hosting the FIFA Confederations Cup matches last summer in four Russian cities, namely Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan and Sochi, the country is now in full-swing preparations to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
The country has selected 11 cities -- Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara -- as the venues for the matches of the 2018 World Cup, which will run from June 14 to July 15.
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Two of the stadiums are located in the Russian capital.
--IANS
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