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Moscow, April 7 (IANS): Russia will cut over $400 million of its spending for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the country's sports ministry has said. According to the report published on the government website on Monday, 25 events will be cancelled and 14 more downsized in order to save 27 billion rubles (over $475 million) for the organisers, reports Xinhua.
Those projects to be trimmed are mainly accommodations provided for participants, guests of the competitions and media staff in various Russian cities like Volgograd and Kaliningrad. Nizhny Novgorod on the Volga river suffers the most severe cuts, with all its 14 hotels to be removed from the accommodation project list.
The decision to cut spending was announced in January by Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko citing economic constrains as the reason. Mutko also refuted suggestions that Russia could downsize football stadiums to save money. "FIFA won't let us do that," he said on Monday.
The total budget for the event was set at 664 billion rubles in 2012. The figure stood at about $20 billion at that time, but it drops to nearly half the number according to current exchange rate. Preparations for the games require implementation of about 300 infrastructure projects in 11 host cities. Besides, 20 more cities were involved in visitors' accommodation service program.
