NEWSWATCH: “Russia hosts World Cup in heat of battle with West” – AFP

May 14, 2018 JRL Russia List Assassinations, Beatings, Threats, Corruption, Law, Police, Courts, Crime, Drugs, JRL NewsBlog, Sports, Olympics, World Cup

Men Sitting Around Long Oval Boardroom Table, File Photo of FIFA Officials Meeting with Vladmir Putin

“… Russia was a controversial choice when it was handed the rights to the world’s most watched event in a 2010 vote now tainted by bribery charges. … The years since have seen Moscow clash with the West over everything from Syria and Ukraine to the poisoning of a former Russian double agent in England. Russia was even banned as a country from this winter’s Pyeongchang Olympics after being accused of state-sponsored doping at the Sochi Games it hosted four year earlier. …”