Does the fact that Russia has never hosted a major international footballing event work in your favor?
It’s another factor, yes. It’s another big factor. We’ve never had a European Championship Finals or World Cup, so we think that it’s time for this to happen. Recent years saw the rise of football in our country, despite the fact that we didn’t qualify [for the 2010 World Cup]. Generally, we’ve been performing well. We’re sixth in the world rankings, a result we’ve never achieved for many, many years. All these things coming together are a good basis to found our idea for the World Cup. What financial resources do you have for the bid and for investment if your campaign is successful? The bid currently has a public budget of $20 million. We expect a similar amount of money to come from private sources. With respect to how much would be invested into organization [of a World Cup] is difficult to say. We do have to build about 10 stadiums. Some of them will be built new, some of them will be renovated. It’s a big investment, but one that we’re prepared to do anyway. These are all regions
