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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is "the engine" driving
forward his country's bid to host the football World Cup in 2018,
sports minister Vitaly Mutko said Thursday.
Mutko told The Associated Press that Putin could help present
Russia's case at FIFA headquarters on Dec. 2 before a vote to
decide the 2018 and 2022 World Cup hosts.
"He is the engine of this bid," said Mutko, speaking after a
meeting of FIFA's ruling executive. He is one of 24 committee
members who will choose the two winning candidates.
Putin is a proven winner in sports politics. His
English-speaking part in Sochi's presentation to International
Olympic Committee members three years ago was judged crucial in
swinging votes that got the Black Sea resort hosting rights for the
2014 Winter Games.
"He does everything that he can to support our bid," Mutko
said through a translator. "The same is applicable to the president
of our country."
Putin and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have met FIFA
president Sepp Blatter in Moscow in recent months, leading many to
consider Russia a favorite in the 2018 contest that is likely to be
awarded to Europe.
FIFA insists all candidates have government support to host
the four-yearly event that earns billions of dollars for the game's
governing body, and invariably costs billions in infrastructure
expenses to stage.
Mutko said Russia's bid was a national priority.
"The World Cup is a fundamental factor in the development of
the country," he said. "Even if Russia will not win the right to
host the World Cup, we will continue to develop sports
infrastructure, stadiums and hockey palaces."
He said state funds would not be over-stretched by adding the
World Cup to extensive construction projects in Sochi and Kazan,
which hosts the 2013 World University Games.
"They are proof to FIFA ... that if Russia takes up certain
commitments, it fully fulfills them," Mutko said.
Bid leaders have not put a price on widespread modernization
needed in its proposed 14 host cities clustered in five areas of
western Russia: northern, southern, central, Volga River and Urals
mountain regions.
Details will be published when Russia and its nine rivals
present their bid books to FIFA in Zurich on May 14.
Mutko accepted that the three other European bids - England,
Spain-Portugal and Netherlands-Belgium - were ahead with existing
stadiums, transport links and hotels.
But he said Russia offered a greater legacy by developing the
sport and opening new markets in the former Soviet republics of
Europe and central Asia.
"(The World Cup) should go to new regions, and open new
frontiers," said Mutko, adding that Russia wanted to make more
friends.
"We want to show to the world the new Russia, open and
hospitable in every sense."
Russia, Australia, England, Japan, United States, plus the
Spain-Portugal and Netherlands-Belgium joint bids have applied to
host either the 2018 or 2022 World Cup. Indonesia, Qatar and South
Korea are bidding for 2022 only.
